


Just An Ordinary Guy

by jez (jezebel), jezebel



Category: Queer as Folk (UK)
Genre: AU, Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe, Artists, M/M, Non-Canon Pairing, Sex, Slash, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-26
Updated: 2010-09-26
Packaged: 2017-10-12 05:16:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jezebel/pseuds/jez, https://archiveofourown.org/users/jezebel/pseuds/jezebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billionaire Stuart Jones learns what it is to love from Vince who thinks he's just an ordinary guy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just An Ordinary Guy

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This was, in part inspired by the challenge above, and partly by Margo's brilliant "Knowing".  
> Part of the Stuart and Vince Fuh Q Fest 2005. The Unassigned Challenge was: AU. Billionaire Stuart Jones learns what it is to love from Vince who thinks he's just an ordinary guy. (by Lorein)

***

Stuart Alan Jones stared out across the New York Skyline at the greyness of dawn and wondered where his life was going. He was 29 years old and unlike many of his contemporaries he had a successful business as well as a career of his own. A journalist for Hello, who had listed him on their most eligible bachelors list, had told him that there were two main ways to attain wealth, one was to inherit it and the other was to earn it. Stuart was apparently lucky that he had managed to do both.

Stuart didn't feel lucky. He had worked hard to establish himself as a credible artist and still worked hard on each new piece that came from his studio. However because Stuart also owned a majority share in Hardwick Entertainment, the film company behind some of Hollywood's most recent box office successes, his success in the art world was often dwarfed by his other successes.

To the people twenty storeys below he had everything. Why then did he look out across the city each night and wish that just once he could have the happiness that people a block, a mile or a city away had? Why didn't he feel happy?

***

Vince Tyler looked at the assorted brochures in front of him and wondered if his mother had finally gone doolally. She must be made because there was no other explanation for it.

"It's just a thought." She said as she pushed the literature closer to her son, as if encouraging him to have a look. "You're dad and I just thought that..."

"Though what?" Vince asked defensively.

"Well, I know that your dad and Yvonne are laying out a lot for Judith's wedding, and he thought that you might like to go to college or something."

"'Cause I'm never going to get married." Vince said flatly.

"Vinnie, love, it's not like that. Its just..." Hazel paused for a moment, trying to think of the right thing to say. "Well, you know your father, never could say what he was feeling. He thinks its easier to show it, and usually that means with money."

"Someone else's money." Vince added, knowing that his father never had two hapennies to rub together until he met and married Yvonne. She came from money and Yvonne's family had always looked down on the Tylers and their lack of decorum.

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." Hazel said curtly. "You always said that you wanted to do something better with your life, something different. You don't have to make a decision right now, college takes applications till September."

"Mom, I've only got 3 GCSE's and that was years ago."

"There must be something you liked doing at school." Hazel said. "What about art, you were always good at art."

"Mum, I hardly think now is the time to be starting up as trainee painter/decorator." Vince replied sarcastically.

"What about Fine Art?" Hazel asked.

"Oh, and that's going to get me a better job, is it?"

"It's not about what the degree is in, so much as the fact that you have it these days." Hazel said. "I was talking to Jean last week, her Lisa's got a degree in Chemistry and wants to train as a social worker. And Bella, down at Manto's, her Michael has a Masters in Engineering, he's going out to Central America to teach English."

"What about the rent, the bills?" Vince asked. "How will you manage if I go to Uni?"

"Cheeky bugger, I managed okay when you were still at school, dare say I'll do a better job now that Bernie is living here and paying a bit of rent too."

"I dunno Mum, it's a big step."

"Just think about it, love." Hazel said. "That's all I'm asking."

Vince was thinking about it. Especially Art. It sounded frivolous but he had always loved drawing and painting at school. He could look into it, if it wasn't for him he could always bin the idea. If he considered it then at least his mother would be happy.

***

Stuart smiled across the table at his host for tonight's dinner party and wondered what he was doing here instead of finishing the pizza in his fridge. He would have been happier there than his current predicament. He should have told them that he had a piece in the studio that he was working on. Everyone knew that "Stuart Hardwick" was a slave to his work and Ana would forgive him anything as long as he delivered his work on time but the same understanding from her about his schedule meant that she would worry if he didn't eat. Ana was a brilliant agent but sometimes she forgot that he didn't need to eat and sleep in the way that "normal" people did. Stuart Alan Jones was a lot of things, but normal was not one of them.

Stuart loved Ana, he really did, but she insisted on inviting him to endless soirees and dinner parties. He hated the ones where she invited select customers and gallery owners but worse were the ones, like tonight, where she tried to set him up with eligible men from the art community. Stuart had fucked his fair share of models, more than enough starving artists and even a few critics but he was not looking for a relationship. Boyfriends and lovers simply took time that he didn't have and drew his focus from his two main past-times: work and sex. In Stuart's experience the easiest way to kill his libido was for his partner to utter the words "I Love You". That was why so many heterosexual couples ended up miserable, just like his parents, they were tied down by the constraints of marriage and relationships. Stuart didn't ever want to be like that.

"So, anyway, Stuart..." Ana said, trying to draw him back into the conversation. "Adrian was just asking how you manage to juggle two such high profile careers."

"I find it interesting that someone so young has excelled in two arenas that most people spend a lifetime trying to breach." Adrian, a forty-something journalist who wrote for the New York Times, said. In Stuart's opinion, Adrian was still trying to break into the professional writing world and was probably looking for tips.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Stuart said darkly. "I shagged my way to the top."

Ana frowned and then laughed politely.

Stuart pulled his mobile from his pocket, ignoring the fact that it wasn't ringing, and flipped it open.

"Sorry, was on vibrate..." Stuart said, explaining the reason for answering his phone. "I'm expecting a call."

"Take it in the study." Ana said with a soft sigh. She knew that Stuart was going to use this as an excuse to sneak off. It wouldn't be the first time that it had happened and she was always polite enough to make excuses for him. Stuart was a talented artist but was known for his fiery temper and his impatience. She supposed that she was lucky he had stayed this long.

Stuart stepped into the study, scrolling down the menu in his phone until he reached the relevant number and then hit dial.

"Sandra, it's Stuart..." He said. "I need to get out of here."

"Just tell Ana you've got a sick friend at home." Sandra said. "That usually works."

"No, not Ana's place." Stuart said. "I need to get out of New York."

"Do I need to prepare a statement for the papers?" Sandra asked, knowing that Stuart's indiscretions were often in the papers. The problem with shagging your way through the art world was that there were a lot of premadonnas with fragile egos that didn't have time for a quick tug in the back room after a good show. A few of them were looking for long-term commitments and when Stuart didn't call them back they had a way of finding their revenge by selling the story, or at least making attempts to, to the tabloids. Stuart was out but he didn't want his sex life spread all over the National Enquirer, and that was tame compared to what the British Tabloids could do if they got a whiff of a sensational story.

"No." Stuart said. "I just need to get away. Aren't there any interviews to give or premieres I should attend."

"Not really." Sandra said. "It's slow at the moment."

"Nothing?"

"Well, there is always Mark's offer, if you're desperate." Sandra joked, it was an old joke between the two of them because Stuart had spent years turning his old friend down.

Stuart rubbed a hand over his face. He was tired and just didn't want to think anymore. Maybe it was time for a change of pace as well as a change in the scenery.

"Call him and see if he can set it up."

"Stuart, I was joking." Sandra said, it was late and maybe he had misheard her.

"I'm not." Stuart replied seriously. "I'm tired, I haven't done any decent work in weeks and maybe the break will do me good. Manchester isn't that far from London, I can swing by and see how Marie and the boys are."

Sandra snorted, she made no attempt to cover her dislike for Stuart's family. His sister was the only one that still spoke to him but that was mostly for what she could get out of her brother. A nice detached house in the suburbs of London and private school for her boys was just the tip of the iceberg of what Stuart provided. Sandra took Stuart's money but at least she worked for it. Marie barely spoke to her brother and never called him unless she needed something done.

"I'll make the call and send the details to you at home."

"Don't bother." Stuart said. "I'll come into the office tomorrow and finalise it then."

He flipped his phone shut and ended the call.

He knew that Sandra would know how serious he was when he said he was coming to the office. Stuart rarely set foot in Hardwick's office, except for the monthly board meeting and various social events, if he was coming in now then it would be for something important.

***

The New York office of Hardwick Entertainment took up the top three floors of a large glass skyscraper that proudly stood as one of the cities highest buildings. Stuart entered the building and smiled to the security guard as he flashed his ID. He knew that by the time the lift reached their floor his receptionist would be aware that he was here and the word would spread quickly around the office.

As Stuart entered the lobby of Hardwick he realised that everyone was trying hard to look busy, perhaps he should make a point to visit more often if it meant that people worked harder. Of course that would also cut into his own time and that wasn't something that he could afford.

He waved off a few attempts from people to engage him in conversation and headed straight to the back of the floor where his office was housed. Sandra, who had her own office next to his, had already come out to meet him a cup of coffee in one hand and his post in the other.

"Good Morning, Sir." Sandra said with an exaggerated curtsey.

"Morning, slave." Stuart replied with a wicked smile. "Anything I need to know about?"

"Other than the fact that Bruce was on the phone as soon as you stepped in the lobby to ask why he wasn't informed you were coming in and the rumour circulating that you might have finally lost the loose grip you had on your sanity...?" Sandra asked.

"If Bruce calls again tell him I'm here to sign off on some papers, as for going insane, that won't happen as long as I have you to keep me in line." He answered.

"Cheeky." Sandra replied. She held out the coffee for him. "Black with two sugars, post is just what came in this morning - I've sorted out the relevant stuff. A couple of black tie, three premieres and an awards dinner but nothing of great importance." Sandra said, giving him the rundown. Usually she dropped in on her way home with the mail and anything requiring a signature but she decided this was easier as he was actually in the office. "I left Mark's number on your desk, today's papers are there too and, other than the few key events, I've cleared your diary for the next month."

"Thanks." Stuart said, taking the coffee and passing the post back to her. "If there are any there that you want to go to, take the invitation, otherwise bin 'em. And try to clear the diary for at least three months."

"Anything else?" Sandra asked.

"Yeah, hold my calls. I'm not in the mood to see anyone today."

Stuart walked into his office and shut the door knowing that Sandra would field any queries with her usual efficiency. Sometimes he wondered if he paid her enough but then he remembered her six figure salary and realised that she was well rewarded for what she did. The other secretaries and personal assistants always complained that she was promoted over them, with little or no experience, but Stuart couldn't work with anyone else. Sandra was the one part of his life in Manchester that he didn't want to forget, well, her and the few friends he had left.

He sat at his desk, looking at the single photo which represented the only personal touch to his office, and picked up the phone. Carefully reading the number he checked it twice before dialling.

"Manchester Community College, How may I direct your call?"

"Can you put me through to Mark Heston please?" Stuart asked, his voice tight as he spoke the name.

"One moment please..." The operator said, before the line changed to a dial tone.

"Art Department, Mark speaking."

The voice was familiar and reminded Stuart of a past he had tried hard to bury. Mark called at least once a month to talk to him but Stuart could count on one hand the times that he had made the call.

"It's me." Stuart said, not needing any introduction.

"Hiya." Mark responded. "It's been a while, what's up?" There was no hint of recrimination in the friendlier tone that Mark adopted now that he knew this was not a business call.

"I'm sorry, I..."

"It's okay, I know you get busy."

"That doesn't excuse it. I mean, if you can call in the middle of exam season, I should be able to manage to call once in a while."

"You call when you need to." Mark replied sagely. Stuart sighed, knowing that his old friend knew him too well to allow him to give him anything other than a truthful answer. Mark knew that Stuart had a reason for telephoning and now he was calling him on it.

"I was wondering if you're still looking for art teachers." Stuart said, his mind going back to a conversation he'd had with his friend a few months ago. The college had a high uptake of part time courses and they were looking to take on extra staff, Mark had been complaining about the lack of qualified people with a good eye.

"We always accept applications." Mark said. "The money is so poor that we have a high staff turnover. Did you have someone in mind?"

"I need to get away for a bit."

"You?" Mark asked, finding it hard to believe his ears.

"Yeah, why, don't I meet your exacting standards?" Stuart asked, the insecurity that he rarely showed coming through as he spoke to one of his oldest and closest friends.

"No, it's just..." Mark started, then tried a different tack as he thought of how he could diplomatically put it. "That's great. That's fine. I'll talk to the principal tomorrow, I'm sure that we can arrange something. The students could benefit from a professional eye."

"Mark, I meant what I said about needing to get away, I didn't just mean from the city, I meant from everything."

"How do you expect to do that?"

"Well, I was hoping that you would sign me up under another name." Stuart said. "I'm still officially Stuart Alan Jones over there."

"And as long as no one makes the association with Stuart Hardwick..." Mark said, making the connection.

"Exactly." Stuart replied, glad that his friend had followed his train of thought.

"Stuart, I don't know what is going on, but you can't run away from your problems." Mark said.

"Didn't you hear? I'm rich and famous, I don't have any problems." Stuart answered mockingly.

"Fuck off!" Mark joked. "We all have problems."

"How is Peter?" Stuart asked, turning the conversation to something more serious and referring to one of Mark's problems.

"He's okay, has good days and bad days, you know?"

"Will it be okay if I stay with you guys, or did you want me to book a hotel?" Stuart asked. "I'll try and get Sandra to arrange me a flight out of the city tonight."

"Of course you can stay with us. Peter could probably do with someone else in the house to distract him, heaven knows that I work too many hours to look after him properly."

Stuart laughed.

"You really think that I'll do a much better job?" Stuart asked. "I can barely look after myself."

"Well, maybe Peter will do better having someone else to look after." Mark replied.

There was a short silence and then Stuart spoke again.

"Thanks for doing this." Stuart said, his accent getting thicker as his voice grew heavy with emotion. "I know that I don't say it often enough but..."

"It's okay, Stuart, we know." Mark replied, saving Stuart from saying the words that cost him so much. "Anyway, I'd better go, I've got a class in 5 minutes."

"I need to call Ana." Stuart responded.

Mark chuckled, his only interactions with Stuart's agent were terse, he knew she was a dragon where Stuart was concerned.

"Good Luck and I'll see you tomorrow."

Mark rung off without saying goodbye just as Stuart would do.

Stuart waited for a moment, trying to avoid making the call to his agent to tell her that he was going to take a sabbatical. He started to shuffle some papers on his desk but couldn't really pay much attention to them. In the end he knew that he had to call her.

"Ana, it's Stuart."

"Stuart, darling, I didn't expect to hear from you today..." Ana said. "Did you manage to sort out your problem?" She teased, referring to the reason that he had left her house last night.

"Actually, I did." Stuart responded. "That's why I'm calling. I wanted to let you know that I'm flying home tonight."

"Home?" She asked.

"Don't play the idiot, Ana, it doesn't suit you. I mean I'm going back to England for a couple of months."

"Months?"

"Three months at least." Stuart answered. "I need to get away for a while. Sort my head out."

"Darling, if you wait a few weeks I'm sure that I can arrange for some European shows. A little tour perhaps, or what about booking that country retreat in Ireland where you painted the Celtic Collection? The owner would be more than happy to have you back after the business she got from that last show."

"Ana, thanks but no." Stuart said, remaining firm. "I'm leaving tonight. I won't be back for three months and I'm not working while I'm out there. I need to take a real break."

"What if I need to get hold of you?"

"You can call Sandra, she'll know where I am." Stuart answered.

Ana sighed. She knew this was a fait accompli and was resigned to the fact that she would lose Stuart if she pushed him much further. Artists were known for being temperamental and tempestuous and Stuart fit that stereotype to a tee. Ana hated the fact that Stuart didn't trust her as much as he trusted that damn personal assistant of his. If she hadn't know Stuart was gay she would have suspected that Sandra was his mistress, she still sometimes wondered if there wasn't something more to their relationship than simple business.

"Have a good break." She replied. "I'll see you when you get back."

"Yeah." Stuart didn't sound too enthusiastic about that and for a moment Ana wondered if he was planning on coming back at all.

"Three months, Stuart." She warned. "No longer. You have a one man show in March and I expect you to be there."

"I will." Stuart said before hanging up the phone. He turned the answer phone on after that, not wanting to take any more calls and then turned to look out over the city. This place, which had once seemed so full of promise, now reminded him too much of the responsibility that he had to deal with. Life in Manchester had always seemed easier and Stuart hoped that by returning he could recapture a little bit of his freedom.

***

Vince stood outside the college and looked up at the oppressive building wondering what he was doing here. There had been a time when he would have longed to walk the hallowed halls of a higher education establishment but now he felt a little long in the tooth to worry about whether or not he had the right NVQs or GCSEs to get by in life. Vince had something that no spotty faced eighteen year old that left college had and that was life experience. The fact that he was there at all made Vince want to run like the wind but another part of him said that he deserved this chance, not only for the chance to learn a new skill but also because it meant the chance to meet new people and gain some self-confidence.

Vince knew that he could draw, but if he had a piece of paper to say that then he know that other people knew it too. Someone else would have recognised the fact that he was worth more than being a check out boy in Harlo's his entire life. Of course Vince hadn't given up work entirely, he didn't think that he would be able to study full time and despite Hazel's protests he had decided to study part time and work part time at least for the moment. So, he was here to enquire about a foundation course in Art that would get him back into education.

"Are you here for the open evening?" Someone asked Vince.

"Yeah." Vince said, turning to see an older man in his fifties.

"I was a bit nervous when I first went in." He said. "But it's okay."

"You're a student here?" Vince asked, only later realising that it sounded impolite.

"Oh, yeah." The man said with a smile. "I'm on my third A Level since retiring. I'm hoping to do History this year, might be able to teach those young 'uns a thing or two."

Vince smiled and then reached for the door. If this man, in his fifties, could do it then there was no reason why he couldn't. He headed for the reception desk and followed the signs for the Art Department. When he got there he was met by a young tutor, probably his age or a little older, who was wearing ripped jeans and a faded black T-shirt with paint dried on it.

"Hi." Vince said nervously. "I'm interested in finding out about studying art."

"Well, you've come to the right place." The tutor said, "I'm Mark Heston, Head of Art here. What did you want to know?"

And as Vince started to ask the right questions he realised that this was a lot easier than he had thought. He hoped that he would get Mark teaching him in September because he was easygoing and funny. Vince remembered some of the teachers that he had at school, real ogres, but Mark was the opposite of that. Vince hoped he got someone nice.

***

Stuart stood outside the small terraced house and checked the address against his PDA and then took a few steps towards the door. The house wasn't what he had expected but he supposed that things had changed a bit while he was away.

Stuart knocked on the door, waited a moment and then knocked again.

"Alright, I'm coming." A call came from inside. Stuart smiled, knowing from the voice that he had the right house.

A moody teenager in a vintage "Nirvana" T-shirt opened the door and sighed before looking up. He had the classic disaffected look of a teenager until he saw who was at the door, when he saw Stuart his face widened into a large grin.

"Uncle Stuart." Peter said, his eyes glowing with tears. "What are you doing here?"

"Oi! Less of the Uncle, it makes me sound old." Stuart said as he dropped his suitcase and wrapped his arms around the young man. He picked him up, whirling him around in a circle as if he was a child and then placed him back down on the ground with an exaggerated groan. "Didn't your dad tell you? I'm staying for a bit."

"Staying?" Peter asked. "Here? With Us?"

"Yes, with you." Stuart said, sounding guarded. "Unless you'd rather I stay at a hotel. I said to your Dad I wouldn't mind but..."

"Don't be stupid." Peter replied. "Family don't stay in hotels."

Stuart smiled as his godson grabbed his suitcase and pulled him into the house before he could change his mind. Stuart couldn't help but feel as if he was part of the family and that he had finally come home. It was then that he realised that was exactly where he was. Home.

***

The first few days in Manchester were a blur to Stuart. He had taken Peter out shopping with him the first day, picking up the essentials that he would need and realising that he would need a car for his stay. Manchester was a large city and although the metro was reliable the easiest way to get around was still to drive. Peter was shocked when Stuart took him into the jeep garage and bought a brand new car from the forecourt. His father drove a seven year old Ford Escort and Peter was more than impressed with Stuart's choice of car. Of course Stuart didn't have a fourteen year old to support on a single parent income so he could afford cars like this but Peter didn't care about that. Secretly Stuart had plans to leave the car in Manchester when he left but he was not about to tell the teenager, or his father, that.

Stuart had also arranged to rent a warehouse in the industrial area of Manchester. Having told Ana that he wasn't going to do any work he realised that it was easier said than done. Art was a way of life to him now and Stuart didn't think that he could give it up. He wasn't sure if he would get any work done, or if he did how commercially successful it would be, but he wanted to at least have a place to go if he wanted to work.

Mark was pretty busy with organising the timetables and syllabi for the new term so he was not around a lot but Stuart was glad of the time with Peter. The younger man did not judge him as adults would and was excited to hear about all of the projects that Stuart was involved in.

Stuart had been in Manchester almost a week when he managed to sit down with Mark for the first time and really talk about anything. It was late on a Saturday night, Peter was out with friends, and the two of them were alone.

"He's a fine lad." Stuart said, looking at the large picture of Peter that hung over the fireplace. "James would have been proud."

Mark took a swallow of his wine and nodded.

"The only thing that he ever wanted for that boy was for him to grow up to be the man he was supposed to be." Mark replied. "You really think he's doing okay?"

Stuart thought about it. He knew that it was tough for Mark. He and his partner had adopted Peter from a friend of James' family. She hadn't been able to cope with a baby as well as her addiction and had wanted the right family for him. Peter was supposed to grow up with a teacher and a lawyer as parents in the kind of upstanding family that most children can only pray for. Then James had died in a car accident when Peter was 5 and Mark was left to raise him alone.

"He's a testament to your love for James." Stuart replied.

"It's strange the things that we do for love." Mark replied. "I never really saw myself as a father, it was James that wanted to fulfill that part of his life."

Stuart chose to ignore the first part of Mark's sentence, instead focusing on Peter.

"You make a brilliant father. Not like me."

"I don't know." Mark replied with a laugh. "You'd be able to afford all of the after school activities and trips, the best schools and college that money could buy."

"Yeah." Stuart said joining in. "If I ever had a baby they'd only want me for my hair and my bank balance."

They shared in the joke for a moment and then Stuart spoke again.

"How are his footie lessons going?" Stuart asked.

"Okay." Mark replied.

Stuart smiled. Peter was a member of a local team that weren't doing so well in the league. When he had heard this he had shelled out the money for a semi-professional coach for them and the next season they had won. Mark knew that Stuart did these things to show his emotions but he couldn't help but feel as though there was something else to it, some part of Stuart that felt responsible for Peter.

"So, Are you ready for the forthcoming term?" Stuart asked, knowing that Mark was sensitive about money and not wanting to dwell too much on what he had done for Mark's son. To Stuart it was simple - he had the money and wanted to share it with those he cared about but some of his friends had a problem taking the money he wanted to share.

"I think the more pertinent question is are *you* ready for the forthcoming term?" Mark asked. "I only have to sort out the classes and work with the second year A Level students, you've got the beginners."

"I still can't believe you gave them to me." Stuart groused. "I bet they can only draw stick men."

"Lowry managed okay on that." Mark replied.

Stuart rolled his eyes but knew that he wouldn't get any further with his complaint. It was not a real grievance and he knew that as an unqualified teacher he couldn't expect the cream of the crop. Better that he work with the beginners than with those that were taking exams.

"Besides, I've seen a few of the portfolios of work from your students and they've got great promise." Mark said. "I seem to remember that you were a bit the same when you started University."

"Fuck Off." Stuart said, the smile on his face belying the insult. "I'll have you know that I'm a talented artist, the 'soul of generation X on canvas'." Stuart said.

Mark laughed.

Stuart sighed.

"What is it they say about a prophet not getting respect in his own town?" Stuart replied.

"That's honour." Mark said. "Besides, I respect you, I just don't take you seriously all the time, especially not when you're quoting some art critic from 'The Guardian'."

Mark saw the dark look that crossed Stuart's face, and wondered for a moment if he had said something wrong, then the frown cleared and a look of awareness emerged.

"That's why I came home, you know." Stuart said. "To escape all of the bull shit. No one here cares that I'm Stuart Hardwick, or cares that I came in fifteenth in the one hundred most influential newcomers in Hollywood last year."

"Nope, you'll just be another poorly paid, overworked art teacher in no time." Mark responded.

"Thanks." Stuart said.

Mark looked down and realised that his glass was empty. He didn't think that he was going to get any more insight into Stuart's problems tonight and he had to be up early in the morning to go out. Sundays were the one day that Mark had to himself, to do his own work, and while he would never be as successful or famous as Stuart he enjoyed painting too much to give it up completely.

"I'm going out tomorrow if you want to come with me." Mark said as he stood to take his glass out to the kitchen. "I know a little waterfall that gets some spectacular colours at dawn."

"Thanks, but I'm just going to lay in." Stuart said.

Mark nodded. He was trying and if Stuart needed him he would ask.

"I'm off to bed."

"Night." Stuart replied.

There was a time when he would have been out on Canal Street on a Saturday night. Maybe next week he would but for now he was happy to just sit and sip on his wine, remembering the times that he had last visited Mark and thinking of the memories of he and James in school.

***

Vince had tried to work on some more artwork during the weekend, but Alex had taken another overdose and Bernie needed help with his car, and by the time he got around to it he had no energy or enthusiasm to paint. He had an early on Monday morning and knew that it was unlikely he would get any work done that week. Vince was still working part-time at Harlo's while he was at college doing his starter course. He had agreed with Hazel that if he wanted to go back full time that he would pack it in but for now it was the one place in his life, other than Canal Street, where he felt comfortable.

It was harder than he thought getting back into his art. It was something that he had always done at school. He was always getting in trouble for doodling and drawing in class but it was something that came naturally. When he left school though he hadn't really had time for it and his childhood passion had been put aside in favour of drinking, dancing and the occasional shag. Vince always thought that if he wanted to draw the skills were still there, like riding a bike, you never forget. Except now it came down to it he lacked the inspiration he had in school.

Vince tried to search for some revelation as he nursed a beer that night at Manto's. Most of the regulars didn't bother with him because he had either shagged them or they weren't interested. That was the problem with this street. After a few years you had seen them all, and even those to the street were boys you'd seen before just with different hair, different clothes and different hang ups about sex and drugs. What was it Dane called them, "the dregs of humanity"? Vince was starting to see what he meant.

A brief murmur rose over the crowd and Vince was bored enough to look up, to see what it was that had fascinated the seething masses on the dance floor. He watched as the dancers parted to allow another player into the room. Vince saw him confidently strutting through the crowd. He wasn't a face that Vince had seen before but he wasn't new to this either. There was none of the nervous excitement of a man just coming out, just awakening in his sexuality, there was a level of self assurance in that walk as if he knew who he was and was comfortable in his being. Vince felt that confidence, felt that energy and unconsciously his pen hit the paper. That was what he needed, to believe in himself enough to draw the picture. Vince had his inspiration; Vince had his muse.

***

Stuart sighed as he sat through the induction session for new teachers at the college. He felt as if he was back in school again, sitting in a detention class, because he was so bored.

There was a need to go through the basics of teaching but that didn't mean that he needed to sit through a dozen getting to know you sessions with fellow teachers. The orientation with the art department, Mark's own version of this training, had involved showing him where the toilets were, where the fire exits were and taking him for a drink with the rest of the faculty. Why Stuart had to mix with the History, Economics and other academic departments was beyond him, especially when the head of Business Studies sounded as if he had never seen the inside of a real office in his life.

"Lessons start next Tuesday." Someone said to him. "We've got a full staff meeting and faculty meetings on Monday, something about harmonising marking scales so that they all tally."

"Yeah." Stuart replied non-commitally. "My first class isn't till Thursday night."

"What are you teaching?" The same someone asked him.

"Art." Stuart replied curtly, turning his attention back to the outlines that they had been given in the hope that they would leave him alone. They were either too obtuse to notice it or they wanted to befriend him.

"Oh, I'm teaching Psychology and Sociology. Only AS Level right now but there is a rumour that the senior lecturer is looking for a new position, a head of department somewhere, so I might be on a full contract next year. This works out really well though as it fits around my doctorate. What about you?"

Stuart turned to the man, a young ginger boy who was beaming with enthusiasm and didn't seem to be able to sit still, he appraised him quickly and Stuart dismissed him without a second thought. A smile spread across his face as a wicked thought crossed his mind.

"Well, I supplement my income with exotic dancing." Stuart replied, a lascivious smile crossing his face.

That was enough to scare the younger man off and, Stuart swore to himself, would be the last time that he even bothered to speak to someone that wasn't in his faculty.

***

The week had been a complete disaster for Vince (as his weeks often were) but he was not going to let it get him down. Vince had been working non-stop trying to prepare a better portfolio of work for his first class and now he was standing outside the college with his A3 presentation folder under his arm. He knew where he was supposed to be going from a pimply faced student who called him "sir" and made Vince feel as if he were past it.

"You heading for the art studio?" Someone asked from behind him. Vince turned to see a good looking young man.

"Blimey, you're a bit young." Vince blurted out, before he realised that this was probably offensive. He didn't know how old the young person was. It didn't seem that he was offended as he laughed.

"I am." The boy said. "I'm only 14 and don't worry, I'm not here for the class, I was just helping to set up."

"Right." Vince said.

"The studio is through there." The boy pointed helpfully.

"Thanks." Vince replied, heading towards the door and grateful that the boy held it open as he tried to manoeuvre the unwieldy folder inside.

"Peter, I thought you were going to meet your dad." A voice from inside called, he sounded angry. Vince didn't want to get the boy in trouble when he had been so much help.

"It's my fault." Vince said, turning the corner and not looking up.

"Oh." Stuart replied. "You're a bit early."

Vince looked up, ready to defend himself until he was knocked off centre by the dark hair and eyes that were burned in his mind. The man, his muse from Manto's, was standing in front of him and Vince was not sure what he was going to do if this man was in his class.

"Hi, I'm Stuart Jones." The man said, holding out one tanned hand and smiling as he met Vince's eyes. "I'm sorry, I wasn't here for the interview sessions, so it'll take me a while to get used to the names."

"I'm Vince. Vince Tyler." Vince said, feeling proud of himself that he was able to speak at all.

"Well Vince, if you want to find a seat, we'll wait for the others to arrive. I'm not going over anything too tough for the first session, so you can relax."

Vince nodded dumbly as he found a seat towards the back of the classroom and prayed that he wouldn't have to speak again. If things weren't bad enough after a shit week now he found out that not only was the man of his dreams going to be in his class for the next few months, but he was going to be teaching it. Vince prayed that the floor would open up and swallow him. The week just couldn't get any worse.

***  
End part 1  
***

Part 2

Despite his misgivings, Vince's first art class went well. They talked a lot; about where everyone came from, what their background was and why they were interested in doing the course. Vince found that he was not the only older person on the course and that there were in fact a variety of people there and by the end of it he felt comfortable enough to exchange phone numbers with someone that he found lived on his street and was willing to give him a lift each week.

Vince hadn't really been around people like this before, not people that shared an interest with him. Of course he saw people at work but that was money and of course he knew people that he went out with but that was sex. Here Vince finally felt as if he had found something that he could just enjoy doing.

The only problem for Vince was his teacher. Usually when people had a problem with the teacher it was because they didn't like them, Vince's problem was that he liked his teacher too much. He had refrained from showing his work in the first lesson by saying he was shy but there was no way that he could display his portfolio when 75% of the sketches were of his muse, a man he now knew as Stuart Jones.

Vince knew that he would have to do some extra work, to make up some work for his folder to replace what he had done. Perhaps he could work on some concept pieces instead of the life drawings that he had done. He had an idea about trying to get Stuart's raw sexual energy down on paper, he just hoped that he could do it justice because sexual potency was not easy to sketch.

Vince paused outside college for a few moments, considering his options and knowing that he should return to his own home to do some work but he was too excited to draw. Checking his watch and realising that it was not too late he decided to go to Canal Street for a quick drink. Maybe he would meet someone else that would be his inspiration.

***

Stuart finished packing away his materials and left the college, telling the caretaker he was done as he exited. On his drive home Stuart thought about the members of his class, as an artist it was always a good idea to keep up with the competition and it surprised him that there were actually some people that had the potential to sell their work. He wasn't sure that any of them would ever make it as a professional artist but they definitely had the enthusiasm to get started.

Stuart envied some of them with their bright-eyed optimism. He remembered feeling that way when he had started working but too many years of working to commissions and contracts had stifled his creativity. It was only as he had built up a reputation for himself in the art world that Stuart was allowed more freedom to express himself in his own way and paint his own pictures.

Stuart didn't want to dwell too much on the individuals in the class, there were a couple of men there that he could see as potential shags but Stuart didn't want to sleep with his students. He could hear Mark's voice in his mind already warning him not to 'shit where you sleep'. Stuart actually liked the idea of having men around that weren't available to him, it would make a change from the superficiality in Hollywood. As Stuart Hardwick he was able to get any man that he wanted, he had even managed to seduce a few straight men with promises of a film role early on in his career but one night stands were rapidly losing their appeal, especially with the vanity and shallowness of LA. Stuart had come to Manchester for a break and this would give him that chance.

Not shagging would be a bit of a novelty, and maybe Stuart would grow to like it. After all, it worked for Mark.

***

Thursday night seemed to come too quickly to Vince. He had spent the weekend with Alex and Dane (who was up from London) and had entertained them with stories of his previous shags, sharing in their own embarrassments as well as telling a few horror stories of his own. He was surprised not to see Stuart out on the street, of course it could be that a good looking guy like that had a boyfriend. There was no way that Stuart Jones wasn't shagging.

Vince had spent the week working on his drawings. He had managed to get Hazel to sit still for five minutes while he sketched some ideas out and was working on a drawing of her. He had also started working on some pictures of his flat, just sketches of some inanimate objects that he had time to study. The fish didn't want to stay still long enough for him to do them justice but he had better luck with a bowl of fruit he brought for the occasion.

Vince had also worked on the concept idea he had, a kind of mad spread of colour which reminded him of the flashing lights and frenetic energy of Canal Street. It had originally been inspired by Stuart but after going out for a week and not seeing him Vince had also started to incorporate other ideas that he saw while he was out.

The pictures of Stuart, the most obvious ones, had been removed from his file and now Vince was feeling more confident about showing his work.

***

Stuart didn't really want to go to his college class that night. He knew that he had made a commitment but it was hard to keep such appointments when he was in the middle of working. That was why he had Sandra to deal with his business obligations because when Stuart was in the studio he didn't stop for anything.

Stuart wasn't sure where the flash of inspiration had come from. He had been driving through town on Friday, heading over to his studio to check things out and he realised that he wanted to work. He had started with some basic sketches, working on the picture on his mind, and then when he had six or seven drawings he had broken out his paints and started on the largest canvas that he could find.

The piece was intricate, a fusion of colours and shapes. They were making up a background to a picture but Stuart wasn't sure what would be in the foreground yet. Sometimes painting was like driving along a country road that suddenly twists and turns, and sometimes the road just came to a stop.

Stuart had been working through the weekend and well into Monday before he realised that he had barely eaten or shaved in three days. If it hadn't been for Mark and Peter stopping by on Saturday to bring him some food he probably wouldn't have eaten at all.

Now he had to stop what he was doing to go to teach a group of wannabes about the difference between landscape and portrait painting when all he wanted to do was finish his piece.

Stuart knew that he needed to reconnect with the world. That was part of the reason for his taking a break but he just didn't want to reconnect now.

So he entered the college in a foul mood that night, hoping to cut the lesson short so that he could return to his studio and put in a few hours work before crashing out on the ratty couch that he kept there. He stormed into the building, slamming the door behind him and walked straight into one of his students, sending the man's sketches flying from his cheap cardboard folder.

"I'm sorry..." The man muttered, as he rushed to pick up his work. "I should have been watching where I was going, but I was just thinking about getting a drink and I wasn't really paying attention..."

Stuart reached out, helping him to collect his sketches and his eyes fell onto one picture that made his heart beat a little faster.

"This is good." He said, extracting the picture that was obviously a queue of men waiting to get into a club. Stuart wasn't sure but from the purple hue on their faces he would guess they were outside Babylon. That meant that the sketcher was either gay or at least frequented Canal Street regularly enough not to be moved on as he drew them.

"Thanks." The man said, a blush creeping up his cheeks as he took the last picture and slipped it back in his file.

"Are you one of my Beginner's Art students?" Stuart asked, not believing someone with this talent could be in his class.

"Yeah." The man said shyly.

"I'm sorry again about walking into you." Stuart said, realising belatedly that his entire bad mood had dissipated after his interactions with this student.

"It's okay."

"I'm Stuart." Stuart said. "I don't remember your name from the last class."

"Oh, I just transferred in." The young man said. "My name is Nathan. Nathan Maloney."

"Well, Nathan Maloney, it's a pleasure to meet you." Stuart said, offering the young man a hand up and squeezing his hand with a little extra pressure, just to be sure. The way that Nathan returned the hand squeeze told Stuart that the kid was gay. Maybe he did have a reason to come to class after all.

***  
End of Part 2  
***

Part 3

Vince glared at the arrogant young man that was showing his work and decided that Nathan Maloney represented every reprehensible thing Vince could imagine.

Stuart had spent the last lesson extolling Nathan's work, his use of colour and his youthful enthusiasm that Stuart obviously found endearing. In Vince's opinion, Nathan was overbearing, cocky and overly optimistic about his chances in the art world. Vince would grudgingly admit that the boy had talent and the fact that at 16 he was the youngest member of the class meant he had courage to be there but that didn't mean that Nathan could use lesson time to fill his bed. Nathan had been aggressively flirting with Stuart since entering the class and Vince hated it. He hated Nathan Maloney with a passion that had caused his artwork to appear dark and bleak.

"That's good." Stuart said, looking at the piece that Vince was working on. Vince's spine stiffened as he realised that Stuart had snuck up on him and he had not even noticed. "I like the way that you've contrasted the dark shadowy figure in the background with the brighter image in the foreground. It has a sense of foreboding to it."

"Really?" Vince asked, not really seeing what Stuart meant.

"Sure." Stuart replied. "You see, here you have the character in the front who is more clearly visible to the viewer, we see a hint of his face but the figure in the shadow is hidden from us. You need to clarify the expression of the model in the foreground to help the viewer picture what he is feeling."

"I'm not sure what that is." Vince replied honestly. He was supposed to be the character in the foreground with the shadowy Nathan Maloney lurking in the background but Vince didn't know how he felt about the young man or why he disliked him so much.

"Well, think about it." Stuart replied. "This is a good piece and if you have it finished I would like to submit it for the student art show next month."

"It's that good?" Vince asked.

Stuart smiled.

"It's fantastic." Stuart replied. "I've met professional artists that don't have as much emotion in their pieces as this. You've clearly got the mind for creative work. Is that your profession?"

"Actually, I work at Harlo's." Vince replied.

"I haven't heard of them." Stuart answered. "Are they a publishing house, or a PR firm?"

"No." Vince replied, his cheeks reddening a little as he replied. "They're a supermarket chain. I'm produce manager."

"Well, we all have to start somewhere." Stuart replied.

Vince looked at the obvious designer jeans that Stuart sported and pondered the fact that Stuart hadn't started anywhere near him. He was sure that Stuart was used to the best of everything and had been all his life. He tried not to take Stuart's comments to heart but could hear the patronising tone.

"Think about the art show." Stuart said. "It could be good exposure for you."

Vince wondered why he would need exposure, he didn't think that he was good enough to ever show his work but he knew that Hazel would get a kick out of going to see it. The closest that Vince ever had was playing for the school footie team and despite her best efforts Hazel wasn't as interested in football as she would be in art. Alex might like to see it too and it would give him something else to mention the next time they went to the pub.

Vince concentrated on his painting, he wondered how Nathan Maloney really made him feel. A range of emotions crossed his mind: jealous that he had Stuart's attention, envious of his natural ability, annoyed by his arrogance and resentful of how effortlessly things came to him but none of them were what he wanted. Then it struck him, like a thunder bolt from the skies, the one thing that he felt towards Nathan. Nathan Maloney made him feel old.

***

***

"I'm sorry, Peter, any other day I would be there, but I have a lot of work to do." Stuart said as he tried to think of how to let the fourteen year old down gently.

"You're supposed to be on holiday." Peter replied.

"It's not that easy." Stuart replied. "Sometimes you just have to work."

"Yeah, I know." Peter said darkly. "I'll understand when I'm older."

Stuart felt immediately guilty as he saw the disappointment that crossed his godson's face. He remembered that feeling from every time his father ignored a prize that Stuart won in his art classes or every school play that his mother missed. Stuart didn't like to feel like the villain of the piece and decided that he wasn't completely truthful when he said he had to work, what he meant was that he wanted to work, and he could spare a few hours for Peter.

"Okay." Stuart said. "I'll come, but I reserve the right to embarrass you in front of the collected girls who fancy you."

"I should be so lucky." Peter replied.

"Don't be daft." Stuart said. "You're a football star, that's currency."

"I'm a defender." Peter replied pessimistically. "Girls only want the guy who scores."

"There isn't anything stopping you from scoring off the pitch." Stuart replied, and only realising after he said the words that he had not taken into consideration the age of his audience.

"Just promise me that you won't score with one of the other soccer dads." Peter said.

Now it was Stuart's turn to look embarrassed.

***

The football pitch where Peter played was not much more than a field with goal posts at either end but it was good enough for practice and the school couldn't afford much more than that. Stuart had offered Mark the chance to send his son to private school, to give him the education that Stuart could easily afford for him, but Mark had refused. Peter would grow up around normal people, in the comprehensive that he had attended and would like it.

The coach smiled at Stuart and gave him a brief nod but didn't acknowledge his presence more than that. The coach didn't know that this was the man that signed his paycheck or he might have been a bit friendlier. Stuart didn't want anyone to know that Peter's godfather had provided the coach though. He preferred that they think it was an old boy of the school that had done well for himself and wanted to give something back.

"Hiya." A familiar voice greeted Stuart as he stood in the cool October air and wished he had work gloves. "Didn't expect to see you out here."

Stuart turned and saw the blonde boy from his class. Nathan, Stuart's mind supplied after some thinking.

"Are you here to do some work or something?" Nathan asked.

"Actually my friend's son is playing." Stuart replied.

"Me too." Nathan responded.

The words were like a cold bucket of water dousing the flames of Stuart's desire as he was reminded just how young Nathan was. He had wanted him in class on Thursday because the young man had been artistic, had been enthusiastic and reminded him a lot of himself but seeing how close he was to Peter's age just made Stuart feel like a paedophile. Of course there was two years between Nathan and Peter but there was so much more growing that Nathan had to do and Stuart was surprised that he had let his desire cloud that. There was still something about the boy that interested him but Stuart knew that he could not seduce him.

"Are you playing for St. Luke's?" Stuart asked, naming Peter's school.

"No. The college team." Nathan replied.

"Well, I won't say good luck then." Stuart replied. "But have a good game, and don't be too disappointed when we beat you."

"In your dreams." Nathan said.

But Stuart was pretty sure that was the only place that Nathan would have in his dreams, at least if his conscious mind had anything to say on the matter.

***

***

Harlo's seemed like a let down after Vince's night at college because he had a chance to dream about showing his work and now he was back to the mundanity of his real life. Vince was trying to stay positive and think about the possibility of showing his work for others but work was getting him down and if Mrs Fletcher asked him to clean the men's toilets one more time he was going to scream.

Vince was busy clearing trolleys in the car park and trying to stay off Mrs Fletcher's radar when he saw the Jeep pull up to the kerb, breaking about ten different traffic laws, and a teenage boy jump out.

"You can't park here." A young voice said as the engine was cut off and the doors opened. Vince looked up and saw the familiar face of his art teacher.

"We'll only be five minutes." Stuart said as he headed inside.

"I'm sorry sir, but you can't park there." Vince said, cringing as he had to do his job. "You're blocking an emergency exit."

"Bloody Hell!" Stuart sounded irate as he turned to give the interfering busybody a piece of his mind. His face changed as he saw it was Vince and Vince blushed a little under his gaze.

"Sorry." Vince said, looking away as he felt ashamed.

"No, that's okay." Stuart replied, the bluster gone from him as he gave Vince an easy smile. "Wouldn't want to get you fired."

Stuart headed back to the car, confusing Peter in the process.

"Wow." Peter commented. "I've never seen Uncle Stuart move his car for anyone before."

Vince frowned.

"You must be in his class." Peter added when Vince didn't comment. "I guess he's taking it seriously after all."

"He's a brilliant teacher." Vince defended.

"Well, he's certainly made a good impression with you." Peter commented.

Vince wasn't sure what the boy meant so he turned back to his job in the carpark.

"Hey, I didn't mean anything by that." Peter said as he stopped Vince. "It's just..." Peter paused and Vince saw his window to walk away but he wanted to hear what the boy had to say. "It's just that Stuart is different now than I've seen him in a while, I wondered...I thought maybe there might be someone to thank for that."

"Well, it's not me." Vince responded. Although he wished that he was the reason that Stuart was smiling.

"Do you want to come over for dinner tonight?" Peter asked. "I know that Stuart would like that and my dad could probably do with hearing that Uncle Stuart isn't terrorising the students in his class too much."

"I don't know." Vince said as he saw Stuart strutting through the car park having parked in a parent and child bay.

"Uncle Stuart?" Peter called. "I've invited your friend over for dinner, that's okay with you, isn't it?" He asked, railroading his godfather in the way only spoiled children could. Stuart knew that he would never hear the end of it if he said no.

"Sure." Stuart said. "As long as your Dad doesn't mind."

"Are you sure?" Vince asked self consciously. He barely knew this man and now he was being invited to his house for dinner.

"Yeah." Stuart said with an easy smile. "It'll be nice to have some adult conversation at dinner for once."

"I'll tell Dad you said that." Peter reported.

"Here." Stuart said, ignoring his godson and instead writing their address on a piece of paper for Vince. "Come over about 8?"

"That's brilliant." Vince said, only realising after he had spoken that he might sound a little too enthusiastic.

"See you then." Stuart said, pulling Peter inside to pick up the extra food for dinner.

Stuart couldn't explain why he felt butterflies in his stomach as he selected mushrooms. He wasn't sure that he wanted to know.

***

***

Part 4

The bottle of white wine that was on special at Harlo's weighed Vince down as he headed for Stuart's house. He could still hardly believe that he had said yes to coming over for dinner but the young man with Stuart had been so persuasive that Vince couldn't bear to say no.

Vince had panicked after the pair had disappeared into the store as he realised that he hadn't had dinner with anyone in ages (except Hazel who didn't count because she was his mother). He was pretty sure that it was bad etiquette to arrive empty handed but usually with his shags that meant bringing your own condoms and lube, Vince was pretty sure that this wasn't going to work at dinner with Peter and Stuart. He thought about what his other friends, straight friends, did when they had a dinner party and so Vince was carrying a bottle of wine and a potted gerbera. It wasn't much but it was all that Harlo's had at such short notice.

Vince came across the house and checked the address twice to make sure that he had the right place. This was not where he expected someone like Stuart to live. Stuart, who wore designer clothes and drove a top of the range jeep, was more trendy warehouse loft than twee terraced house. Still, Vince knew better than to judge a book by its cover. His father and Yvonne had a large semi in Macclesfield but growing up it had never seemed as warm and homely as Hazel's run down terraced house with no garden for a growing boy like him. Maybe that was why Stuart had opted for a smaller house in a nice neighbourhood. It was the sort of place where the neighbours knew each other.

Vince approached the door and knocked apprehensively. He was surprised when he saw who answered the door.

"Hello." Mark said with a warm smile. "You must be Vince."

"Yeah, Hi. Sorry, I thought this was Stuart's house." Vince said, with a frown on his face. He wondered if this was a cruel joke or if Stuart lived with the other lecturer in the art department. He knew that Stuart was gay but he had not thought that he could be in a committed relationship, not when he had seen him out cruising on Canal Street.

"Stuart is staying here at the moment." Mark explained patiently. "Peter, the tearaway that invited you to dinner, is my son."

"Oh." Vince said as he entered the house. Vince was relieved that Stuart and Mark weren't together but confused as to why a father and his son would have Stuart living with them. "I bought some wine, I wasn't sure what we were having."

"That's nice of you." Mark said, taking the wine and the plant. "Come in. Peter, our guest is here." Mark called up the stairs. They entered a small sitting room where Stuart sat on one of the sofas with a sketch pad in his lap. When he looked up to see what had disrupted his flow he saw Vince and smiled.

"Hi." Stuart said as he cast aside his sketch book and stood to greet Vince. "I'm glad that you could make it."

Vince was sure that Stuart was only being polite as he offered his hand to be shaken but Stuart surprised him by pulling him into a loose hug and patting him on the back. Vince caught a whiff of Stuart's breath and the impromptu hug was explained by the faint smell of alcohol.

"Hiya." Peter said as he came down the stairs and into the lounge. "I'm glad that you could come. Dad, this is Vince." Peter said, as if his father had not already introduced himself to the guest he had let into their house. "He's the one I told you about. One of Stuart's students."

There was a certain emphasis placed on the last word, as if Stuart didn't usually have students. Vince was confused by that. Surely Stuart was an accomplished art teacher if they trusted him with the beginner's group. He certainly seemed to get a lot out of Stuart's lessons.

"We've got pasta for dinner tonight." Peter said. "I hope that's okay. We don't usually have company so I have a limited repertoire."

"That's fine." Vince said. "Anything makes a change from takeaway." He added with a self deprecating laugh.

"Well, if you usually rely on Fish and Chips and Dominoes then Peter's cooking will be a nice change." Mark responded. "Despite his insecurity he's actually a good cook."

"Da-ad..." Peter whined embarrassedly as he gave his father a look that threatened physical harm if he continued to embarrass him. It was clear that Peter didn't like people to know that he was a good cook.

"He's also a brilliant footballer." Stuart added, drawing attention away from the father and son. "Gonna play for England some day." He added proudly.

Peter seemed much happier with this comment and feeling that his masculinity was again confirmed he headed into the kitchen to check on dinner.

"Sorry about that." Mark said, clearly embarrassed that Vince had witnessed the exchange. "Peter's a bit self-conscious about the fact that his parents are gay. He doesn't want to be seen as gay by association."

"Oh, right." Vince said, a frown crossing his face as he tried to work out the family dynamic here.

"Peter's other dad, my partner James, died when he was 5 but we were always open with Peter about who we were." Mark said.

"I'm sure that Vince doesn't want to hear the whole morbid tale." Stuart interceded, seeing the pained look that crossed Mark's face as he relived the memories of nine years before. "Tell him the one about that twat in your life drawing class instead." Stuart added, moving the mood away from the depressing to the more light-hearted.

"We had a model that got a hard on." Mark replied, causing Vince to laugh. "But the best thing was that it was the art class that I run down at the community centre, all pensioners and bored housewives." He said, causing Vince's laugh to deepen.

Stuart went into the kitchen and came back with the wine bottle and while they waited for dinner they shared stories about their lives, sipping on the wine and getting a little buzzed from its effects.

By the time Peter brought out dinner Vince was feeling much more settled than he had been and felt as if he was a part of whatever family these people were to each other. He wished that it was something he could remain a part of.

***

After dinner had been eaten and the dishes were cleared away the adults settled into the lounge room with another bottle of wine while Peter, after some protestations, had gone to bed.

"This is good stuff." Mark said, taking a small sip of the wine that Vince had brought with him. "Do you know much about wines?"

"Not really." Vince said. "Just what it said on the label."

"Vince works at Harlo's." Stuart remarked as he took a sip. It was nice enough wine, not what he was used to from the dinners he attended in New York but nice enough, and he enjoyed the company that it came with.

Vince expected a teasing comment from Mark, but instead got a smile.

"Do you know Rosalie Miller?" He asked with a small smile. "She's a sweet girl, her brother is in one of my classes and he tried to set me up with her. Apparently she's good with kids." Mark added, as if that was the reason someone had set them up. Vince supposed that as a single father he got that a lot.

"Yeah." Vince agreed. "She's got her NVQ in Childcare but there weren't any openings locally."

"What about you?" Mark asked. "Are you just there till you get a better offer?"

"No." Vince said. "I'm working there so I can pay the mortgage. My Mum can't work, hasn't worked for a while now, so someone had to bring some money in."

"If you sell some paintings that will help though." Stuart said. "And if it works well enough you could probably go part-time."

Vince laughed self-consciously.

"That's not likely to happen." Vince said.

"Why not?" Stuart asked. "You're a good painter."

"Yeah, and so are you, but you still have to supplement your income teaching art to know-nothing wannabes."

"Don't put yourself down. Some of us 'know-nothing wannabes' have done okay since taking art classes." Mark replied.

"Yeah, but you're..." Vince wanted to say that they were different, but he supposed that Mark was not much different than him.

"I really think that with a little extra practice and a few more pieces of work you could put some stuff up for sale." Stuart replied. "You just need to work at it."

"Even if you are right, it's not as if I can just stop everything to go and paint. My flat is tiny, there isn't anywhere to put up an easel and it's not like I've got a beautiful view out the window for inspiration, my housing estate backs onto a disused factory."

"I've got a studio." Stuart found himself saying. "You can come out and work there if you need to."

"That's nice, but..."

"I won't take no for an answer." Stuart interrupted. "What kind of teacher would I be if I didn't assist my students in doing their best?"

Mark shared a look with Stuart, he wondered what the hell his friend was up to, and asked him without words what on earth he was doing. Stuart looked away and smiled at Vince.

"Okay." Vince answered. "But you'll have to let me know if I'm getting in your way or anything."

"You won't." Stuart replied.

The three of them sat enjoying the moment after that. Mark was pondering what would make Stuart invite someone into his studio when it meant he would run the risk of exposing who he was to one of his students. Stuart was wondering how he had let this man into his life when he had spent so many years pushing people away and Vince was doubting whether or not he could live up to Stuart's expectations of him and his work.

Peter, who had stood on the stairs listening to the exchange, was hoping that it would all work out and that he had been right about Vince. He went up to bed, where he should have been an hour before, and lay back thinking about what it would take to make Stuart finally happy. He hoped that Vince was the answer because he could not think of another way to make his Godfather smile again.

***

***

Part 5

When Stuart said Studio Vince had pictured a small loft off Canal Street or an empty flat somewhere that had good lighting. He had not expected the two storey warehouse space in the abandoned industrial estate a few miles from the college. The warehouse space had seen better days, had probably been empty, except for a few raves, since the recession in the nineties. It looked as though more than one of the windows had recently been patched up but there was a new security system on the door and the large glass windows that showed from floor to ceiling let in a surprising amount of light considering the dreary Manchester day.

"Hello?" Vince called, knocking on the door which had been propped open. "Stuart?"

"In here." Stuart called from the bowels of the dark building.

Vince decided that was the only invitation he would get so he entered and was surprised to find a short corridor that led down into a large, white airy room.

"Wow." Vince said, as he saw the space. "This is brilliant. Not at all what I expected. Didn't take me too long to find the place, but I didn't expect anything this big."

"Shhh..." Stuart said, as he worked intently on a painting that he was obviously in the middle of. "'m working."

Vince took one look at the impressive art work and knew that he was out of his league already. Stuart had a 6 foot by 8 foot canvas which he was busy daubing paint onto and if Vince had not known better he would have envisaged this being the backdrop for an elaborate play.

Vince didn't want to disturb Stuart so rather than continuing his conversation with himself he decided to tour the rest of the building and find his way around.

The large white room where Stuart was painting made up the majority of the Studio but there were three smaller rooms in a cluster at the front of the room by the door and a staircase that led up to an office which overlooked the studio. The office had blinds and was obviously Stuart's private office, given that the door was locked. The three rooms underneath it were bathroom, a kitchenette and another office, which looked like it had once been a storage room, with a couch, a television and a bed. It was almost as if the place had been set up for a recluse to live in with only his art and Vince smiled at the picture that conjured of Stuart. Stuart Jones was not the kind of man that should be shutting himself away from the world to work hard, he should be out on display as a thing beauty alongside his paintings and sculptures.

"Vince?" A voice called.

Vince moved away from the room quickly and went back to the main area where Stuart had been painting.

"Sorry about that. I tend to get caught up in my work. I just wanted to get that bit finished." Stuart said, indicating a small area of the canvas which, to Vince's untrained eye, looked the same as the rest of the canvas in it's abstract mass of colours and swirls. "So, you found it then?"

"Yeah." Vince said, careful not to begin his diatribe from earlier. He had a tendency to ramble when he was nervous but he didn't want to give Stuart the wrong impression, or lead his mentor to regret his decision about letting him work here.

"I've set up a small area in the corner that you can work in." Stuart said, reaching out his hand and when Vince took it leading him over to one side of the cavernous room. "I wasn't sure what you would want to work on but I would love to see more of your painting."

Vince saw that there was already a smaller canvas set up on an easel and a table laid out with oils, pastels, watercolours and a wide array of palet knives and brushes.

"I laid out a few things for you to try." Stuart said. "Have a play and see what you think."

"This is all too much." Vince said. Only realising after the words had come out that he sounded ungrateful. "I mean..."

"It's not much really." Stuart interrupted. "Just as few things that I had lying around. You'll have to experiment a little until you find a medium that you prefer. Then you can look at getting your own materials."

"Thank you." Vince said, knowing that to say anything else would cause him to sound unappreciative of Stuart's generosity. Vince told himself that it was only that Stuart wanted to be a good teacher and therefore not charity that had made him provide Vince with supplies.

"Well, unless you have any questions I'll leave you to it." Stuart said, turning his back on Vince and leaving the man alone to stare at the stark white canvas in front of him.

Experiment, Vince thought. He could do that.

Picking up a couple of colours Vince tested them on the pages of a sketch pad that was also on the table. He found a hew of purple that was so dark it was nearly black and he was inspired to work with it. It wasn't until he had painted a large swirl of it on the paper that he realised this was the exact same shade that Stuart's hair turned when the light reflected from it. Vince blushed slightly and continued with his picture, careful to make it as abstract as he could, when it was done he started with a different picture and this time started to think about something that Alex would like.

Three hours later Stuart returned to find Vince surrounded by loose leaves from the sketch pad and a dozen different images surrounding him. The canvas was barely started but it showed promise with a dozen different items visible on the page. To the untrained eye it was a mishmash of randomly selected objects that were haphazardly scattered on the page, but Stuart knew that like most art there was a story behind it that would be different for each viewer.

"What were you thinking of when you started." Stuart asked.

Vince bit his lip to stop from saying 'You' and instead tried to go for something that sounded profound.

"My life." Vince said. "I think I was trying to paint my life."

Stuart nodded and could understand the confusion of the picture. There were days that he felt as if his life was like that too.

***

The next few weeks were a whirlwind of activity as Vince settled into a steady routine of working, painting at Stuart's studio, college and the odd drink down on Canal Street with friends.

Stuart appeared to fit in around Vince's routine for the first few days but when he realised that Vince was as commited as he was to his art he gave in the politeness of joining Vince at the studio and gave him a key so that he could set his own hours. Vince was touched by Stuart's trust of his privacy but also disappointed that he would not have the chance to see his tutor as often as he would like. Vince had started to look forward to the time that they spent together and knowing that Stuart would not always be there dampened a little of Vince's enthuasiasm to paint, it did not however quench the creative thirst that Stuart had awakened in him.

Three weeks into their new friendship Vince came to the studio on a quiet Wednesday night to find Stuart sitting in the centre of a mess of paints and torn canvas as he tore into his work with a stanley knife.

"Stuart?" Vince called, slightly alarmed when he saw the mess in front of him. "What happened?"

Stuart paused from his cutting as if confused by his temper and looked up at Vince. There was a rage in his face that dissipated a little when he saw Vince.

"I was frustrated. The whole thing was just wrong."

"Why?" Vince asked. "Everything seemed to be going brilliantly the last time I saw it."

"It just didn't feel right." Stuart said.

"You've been here too long." Vince replied level-headedly. "You just need to get away from work and relax a little."

"Yes, Pollyanna." Stuart said sarcastically. "That's exactly what I need. It's not that I need to make this work, or that I have earn a living from my painting, it's just that I need a good night's sleep."

"Come on." Vince said, reaching a hand out to Stuart who appeared to want to dwell in his own self-loathing. "We'll go out to Canal Street, grab a couple of beers and you can pull some hot young thing that is going to fall over himself to blow you in the stalls of Babylon."

"I'm hardly dressed to go out." Stuart said, looking down at the crumpled shirt and faded jeans that he wore when he was working.

"Are you kidding me?" Vince asked. "You've got that 'tired-artist-looking-for-a-muse' look about you. The twinks will lap that up. Maybe you'll even find a rich man that wants to be your patron."

Stuart laughed at that idea.

"Okay." He said, feeling his anger fade a little more with the smile that Vince had brought to his face. "But you have to dance with me."

"I think I could suffer one dance with you." Vince replied, a cheeky grin on his face. The truth was that it would be a delight for Vince to dance with Stuart, he just hoped that he didn't embarrass himself by getting a hard on in the middle of the dance floor. Vince had a major crush on Stuart and he knew that there was no way his mentor would return his affections. Stuart was good-looking, talented and sexy. What would he see in a guy like Vince?

***

The pounding Hi NRG music in the club bled out onto the street in front as Vince and Stuart pulled up in Stuart's jeep. Stuart ignored the double yellow lines and pulled into a space down a side alley.

"There's a bit of a queue." Vince stated nervously as he looked at the club's entrance.

"Don't worry." Stuart said as he ignored the queue and waltzed up to the door.

The doorman looked at him with a raised eyebrow and indicated the line which formed around the corner. Stuart slipped his hand into his pocket and slide the bouncer a twenty pound note. The line seemed to disappear from the man's mind and he let Stuart and Vince in without a second thought. It was obvious that he was easily bought.

"That was brilliant." Vince said, a smile on his face as he remembered all the times that he and his friends had waited for what felt like hours to get into the club. He was sure that even if they tried to bribe their way in it would have backfired, but Stuart had an aura about him that made you want to do whatever he said.

"There is no such word as no. What people really mean when they tell you no is 'how much are you willing to offer?'" Stuart said. "I very rarely meet someone that doesn't have a price."

"I don't." Vince replied honestly.

Stuart smiled.

"Funnily enough, I thought you would say that." Stuart replied.

Vince wasn't sure what Stuart meant but he thought that it was meant to be a compliment. He wasn't sure if Stuart was used to dealing with people like him, there was something about Stuart that spoke of spending time with the upper echelons of society, but Vince thought that if he spent more time with Vince and his friends he would realise that not everyone had a price. Maybe what Stuart needed was to spend more time with them and Vince would only be too glad to share his group, he just wasn't sure that he wanted to share Stuart.

***

***

After a night of drinking and dancing Stuart had all but forgotten his frustrations earlier on that day. It felt strange to be out on Canal Street and not on the prowl but this night was not about that and he was content to spend his time with Vince. It felt good to be out with friends again just having fun and not having to look over his shoulder every five minutes to check that he was not being followed. Being there as Stuart Jones and not Stuart Hardwick meant that it was easier for him to blend in to the background and just enjoy the scene.

"D'you want another drink?" Stuart asked Vince as he saw his friend wave to yet another well wisher. It appeared that, despite his denial that he was not a scene queen, Vince knew everyone and his boyfriend.

"I think you've had enough." Vince replied with a small giggle. He didn't mention that he too had drunk more than enough.

"Maybe we should head off then." Stuart replied.

"Could do." Vince said, non-commitally. He wasn't sure what Stuart was suggesting.

"I think we should head back to the studio." Stuart said, not wanting the night to end.

"You're pissed." Vince said. "You can't want to tidy up now."

"I don't want to tidy up." Stuart answered. "I want to draw you."

"Why?" Vince asked, bewildered as to why Stuart would want to draw him when there were a dozen more attractive men that Stuart had turned down that night.

"Don't you know?" Stuart asked rhetorically. "You're Fantastic!"

Vince giggled.

"Yeah, and you're pissed." Vince repeated.

"Come on, Come with me." Stuart encouraged. "I'm suddenly feeling inspired."

Vince felt light headed from the alcohol and all sense and reason left him as he found himself bundled into a taxi and heading back towards the studio. He had never seen himself as an inspiration, but he guessed that Stuart was too drunk to know any better and that they would both wake up the next morning and see the funny side.

Vince fell asleep on the sofa at the studio a few minutes after they arrived. He never realised that Stuart stayed up all night working on his drawings of Vince.

***

When Vince awoke the next morning his head was pounding and he barely remembered the night before. He knew that he had found Stuart amidst the chaos of his studio and had taken him out drinking but did not remember how he ended up back at the artist's place, nor how it had ended up so immaculately clean. The hangover told him that he didn't want to rise but work would force him too and that it was going to be a long and difficult day to survive.

"Stuart?" Vince called, experimenting with sitting up and glad to see that the room was not spinning.

There was no reply and after scanning the main room he was surprised to see that Stuart had left him alone.

A folded piece of cartridge paper lay on the table next to him and Vince realised that it was a note as soon as he saw the familiar scrawl with his name across the front.

"Vince,   
Sorry I couldn't stay, I had a breakfast meeting at the college. See You tonight.   
Stuart."

As he read the note Vince realised that it was again Thursday and that meant only one thing. College. Suddenly Vince's hangover dissipated as he realised that he would get to see Stuart again that night and that they would be talking about the student art show that was coming up in a couple of weeks time.

Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad day after all.

***

***

Part 6

Stuart knew that it was going to be a bad day from the moment that his phone rang, pulling him away from his drawings of Vince, and reminded him that the impending morning would bring back the world outside and that he would have to speak with his agent about his schedule.

It was approaching Christmas and Ana had told Stuart that he had three months to sort his shit out before he had to get back to start planning his one man show in March. Stuart hadn't even begun to settle down or relax into his position as a teacher and she was already asking him to leave it.

Sandra too had called with some business that needed his attention and, much to his dismay, Stuart spent most of the day working in his office rather than in the studio where he wanted to be. There were days when he loved his work and days he hated it. Unfortunately he knew this was going to be one of the latter. The last thing that he needed was to teach a college class of eager but talentless students about brush strokes. The only highlight would be that he got to see Vince again. That was the only thought that kept Stuart going through his god awful day.

***

Vince rushed his way through a half day at Harlo's before college and felt on cloud 9 that he was going to see Stuart again. He felt that the friendship he and Stuart were building was something that had been missing from his life and despite the assortment of friends that he already had none of them felt as close as he did with Stuart. Of course there was the underlying feelings that Stuart evoked in Vince but he would be more than willing to let those lie if Stuart remained his friend. After all Shags can come and Shags can go but friendship is forever.

The college seemed to have taken on an ethereal glow in the chilly night and Vince wondered if he could capture the essence of the cool night air and distill it into one of his art works. The stars gleamed against the backdrop of the dark night sky and Vince was reminded of Stuart's raven hair. Vince shook his head and realised that he would be useless to anyone if he couldn't pull himself together. He took a deep breath and stepped into the college.

"There's no class tonight." Nathan said, calling Vince away from his thoughts. "Apparently there was a family emergency."

Vince wondered for a moment if he was making this up, if Nathan had finally decided that he wanted to make a move on Stuart and was trying to get Vince, Stuart's star pupil, out of his way. Then Vince saw the poster on the wall that Nathan had received his information from.

"Thanks." Vince said, feeling the weight of the world land on his shoulders as the high that he had been on all day subsided and he hit the world with a bump.

"I guess I'll see you next week." Nathan said, although he didn't sound as if he was looking forward to it.

Vince didn't give him a response, he was too busy worrying about Stuart. He wondered what could have happened since that morning that meant that Stuart could not make it to class. Vince's first thought was that there was something that he could not remember about the night before, but he dismissed the idea quickly and then started to wonder if Peter and Mark were alright. Vince didn't know a lot about Stuart's family but he felt as if there were anyone that Stuart would give things up for it would be the two of them.

Vince wondered if it was too late to call when he saw Mark leaving the art building followed by his teenage son.

"What's wrong?" Vince asked, the thought hitting him that if the pair of them were okay that it may be Stuart that had suffered some tradgedy. "Where's Stuart?"

"He didn't tell you?" Mark asked, looking slightly concerned. "I'm sure that he said that he was going to call."

"I guess it slipped his mind." Vince said, not liking the fact that Stuart's best friend was accusing him of not contacting Vince. Stuart had an emergency and Vince was sure that there were more important things on his mind than one of his students.

"Stuart had some business to attend to." Mark replied. "He had to cut his trip short."

"Trip?" Vince asked.

"He didn't tell you?" Mark asked, seeming more and more surprised that the pair had spent so much time together and yet knew so little about each other. "He's gone to London." Mark said. "His trip to Manchester was only supposed to be for a short while."

"What about his classes?" Vince asked, wondering if he would ever see Stuart again. "What about his studio?"

"I'm sure that he was going to call you..." Mark said, trying to soften the blow to Vince slightly. "Stuart left the studio space for you, he's hoping to come back before Christmas to collect some of his things. I'm taking on his schedule until the end of this term and hoping that I can get someone else to fill in after that."

"Oh." Vince said, feeling the bottom fall out of his world. "I guess I'll see you next week."

"Vince," Mark called. "He said he would call you."

"Yeah." Vince said, but he wasn't sure that he believed that it was true.

***

***

Vince's week dawdled after his class and he went to the studio only once to collect his work. Stuart had emptied most of his own pieces from the warehouse and Vince wondered bitterly if he was trying to erase every piece of himself from Vince's life.

Christmas was around the corner and Vince tried to hide his pain by immersing himself in the extra shifts that he had taken at Harlo's to prepare for the holidays and began to plan his presents.

Vince didn't hear from Stuart, not that he had expected to, but despite their lack of a relationship he could not help but feel like the jilted lover. Stuart and he had grown close over the weeks that they had spent together and Vince had been in relationships where he didn't like his boyfriend as much as he had liked Stuart. Vince didn't think that Stuart reciprocated his feelings but he had hoped that the other man at least thought of him as a friend.

Maybe Vince had just read too much into the situation as he was prone to do. Alex was always telling Vince that he romantised things far too much.

 

***

Stuart hated London, it had always been a place that haunted him but in the last decade it had started to develop some of the falseness of the larger American cities and none of the charm. The business that Sandra had called about turned out to be deeper than Stuart had first thought and he had been drawn down to the city earlier than he wanted to leave. Once he was here he had become caught up with Marie and the boys and was working in a studio loft that Ana had hired for him that had none of the calls of home that the space in Manchester had. There was also one other thing that Manchester had that London lacked and on many cold and rainy nights Stuart found himself thinking of Vince.

Stuart wanted to return to Manchester for the holidays, spending the day with his real family rather than his blood relatives but Marie would not hear of it and insisted that Thomas and Ben needed to see more of their Uncle. Stuart thought bitterly that what she really meant was that they needed their Uncle to buy them the expensive games consoles that they were crying out for but he didn't mention it to her aloud. As much as he loved his sister he hated the fact that just once she wouldn't come to him with some emotional blackmail rather than just asking him outright for the money. Stuart knew that she was not as rich as him and would more than likely give her the money anyway but he hated the emotional baggage that she tied to each and every guilt trip she laid on him.

All in all London sucked and Stuart couldn't wait to get out of the city and back home.

***

Vince knew that it was childish of him to hope that Stuart would make it for the Student Art Fair at the end of term. He hoped that after giving Vince all the extra help and support that he would be there to see his pupil's worked but it appeared that even Vince's works were not enough to drag him away from whatever important business had called him away from Manchester and kept him gone for nearly 6 weeks now.

Vince missed Stuart. He didn't mind admitting that to himself and he tried to find excuses to go to the studio even though he lacked the will to work now that his muse had left him. Any work that Vince did get done had a melancholic overtone that was far too depressing for public show. The two pieces that he had finally chosen for the show were the ones that he had started under his mentor's guidance and that most reminded him of Stuart.

"You alright, kid?" Hazel asked him, showing her maternal concern as she looked at her wistful son as he gazed at his work.

"Yeah." Vince said.

"I'm dead proud of you." Hazel said. "I know that this can't have been easy."

Vince wondered if she meant more than taking an adult education class because she had met Stuart and asked what had happened to that Irish lad that he was seeing. Vince never said a word but he knew that his insightful mother would understand.

"It's not." Vince said. "But I guess I do it because I love it." Vince added, thinking that what he really meant was that he did it because he loved him. It hurt because Vince felt that he might love Stuart already, might have done from the moment that they met and now he didn't know if he would ever see Stuart again.

Hazel screamed and cheered as the prizes were mentioned and her son was honoured but Vince was not surprised when his raven's wing abstract got him a special mention prize. Stuart was the kind of person that would win prize's for his loveliness and as Vince's inspiration he had also won Vince the prize. Vince's only wish was that he had won the prize of Stuart's friendship instead of for his art and that maybe he would have been offered a chance at winning his love.

***

***

Part 7

Christmas in the Tyler House was always something to behold, what they lacked in wealth they made up for in entertainment and enjoyment as the whole street was welcomed into Hazel's house over the holiday. Vince felt like Ebeneezer Scrooge over the break but tried to spend as much time as he could with those that loved him. He knew that it was pointless to moon over someone that had never nor would ever be his when he already had so much to be thankful for with those around him.

Alex was not here this year, telling Vince that he owed it to Dane to spend the holidays with him, and Vince appreciated that. His best friend would be back for New Year and would be the life and soul of the party once he arrived. He hoped that the new year would bring a new chance at love for him and Vince was prepared to put any dreams of anything with Stuart behind him and instead concentrate on his own career as a budding artist.

"Stop staring into that Egg nog and get it into you." Hazel said, pulling Vince out of his deep funk. "Those Easter Egg Boxes won't make themselves."

Vince smiled as he looked down at the cheerful bunnies. Only Hazel would prepare Easter Eggs at Christmas and Christmas Crackers in the middle of Summer - it was madness, but he knew that this scheme might be the one that would work out so he didn't complain. At least it gave him something else to think about.

***

***

Alex was starting to think that it wasn't such a good idea to spend Christmas with Dane when he realised that they were going out on Christmas Eve to an exhibition rather than a gay club. Alex had a mistletoe hat that he had designed especially for going out to maximise his pulling potential and now he was stuck at some stuffy art gallery instead of going out and unwrapping some young stud as a present to himself. Dane was more dour than usual and reminded Alex of Vince over the last few weeks.

"It's a work thing." Dane said curtly when Alex complained. "I did some programming for a large company and they gave us the tickets in return. If I don't go then it will look like I'm snubbing them."

"I thought you sold your programme for big money." Alex said. "No need to work."

"I still like to keep a hand in." Dane replied.

Alex supposed that Dane was a computer geek and always would be. That was one of the reasons that he couldn't shag him, even though Dane had more than enough money to keep Alex in the style to which he could easily become accustomed.

"Okay." Alex said with a sigh. "But there had better be a lot of fit men at this gallery - models and such."

"There will be." Dane replied.

"Who is the artist anyway?" Alex asked. "Anyone that I might have heard of."

"Probably not." Dane replied self-importantly. "This is one of his first London shows. Mostly sells in New York despite being an English artist. Probably a pretentious wanker who hates the country where he was born."

"I still might have heard of him. I'm not a country hick."

"His name is Stuart Hardwick."

"The Film Mogul?" Alex asked.

Dane nodded.

"Well," Alex said with a smile, "Maybe I'll pull tonight after all."

***

Stuart was bored out of his brain as he spoke to yet another colleague in the industry and had to explain that he was not selling these pieces and that this was just a pre-show for his upcoming gallery appearance. He could have killed Ana for making this appointment for him but he had needed to get out of the house and she had suggested a private gathering for some of his larger clients so that they could see what they liked amongst the collection and so that Stuart could get a feel for what pieces were going to sell well.

Stuart loathed painting for the market, it was not as if he needed the money, but Ana insisted that this was the quickest and easiest way to make a name for himself in his chosen field as a serious artist. Stuart may not need the money but recognition as a legitimate artist was what he had always wanted and it was only made more difficult by his ties to Hardwick Entertainment. So he was stuck at the show until at least midnight when he could use the excuse of family commitments to leave.

The crowd that had gathered were not Stuart's usual set and he was surprised to see that there were a number of faces in the audience that he did not recognise. Usually Ana invited only a select few to her gatherings and Stuart didn't mind that so much but there were more than usual there and Stuart was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the group.

Stuart heard a brief commotion to one side of him but drowned out the noise and instead headed to the bar for another drink. There had to be a way that he could get through this evening.

***

"Oh. My. God." Alex shrieked as he saw the picture that was on the wall. Dane turned to glare at him for showing Alex up but when he saw the image on the wall his mouth fell open as he saw what had made Alex scream.

"I know." Another passerby said as he looked up at the painting. "Gorgeous, isn't he? I spoke to Ana earlier but she refused to tell me who the model was. One of Hardwick's many conquests I'm sure. That man gets more shags than I've had hot meals."

"It's...It's..." Alex said, trying to voice the words.

"It's brilliant isn't it?" The man continued. "Amazing how he has captured the innocence of his model. He looks worn out, no doubt from a brilliant fucking. I've heard that art isn't Hardwick's only talent."

With that comment the man wandered off as someone that he obviously deemed more important caught his eye and Dane and Alex were left alone with the painting.

"That's Vince." Dane said, stating the obvious with his usual tactless cyncism.

"Well, Duh" Alex replied camply. "I think that our little Vince has been holding out on us, I never knew that he doubled as a life model in his spare time. I always thought that was more my thing than his."

"Vince has been taking art classes, maybe he made some contact through that."

"I doubt it. Didn't you say that the artist was involved with Hardwick Entertainment? That's hardly someone that would spend their time taking in a small time art course at an out of the way college in Manchester." Alex replied. "Besides, if Vince had shagged a movie mogul don't you think that he would have told us? That boy never keeps quiet about any of his shags, at least not to me."

"Then how did Vince end up in this picture?" Dane asked. "And naked at that."

"Well, I don't know." Alex said as he put his hands on his hips. "But I'm damn well going to find out."

***

Part 8

"There had better be a good reason that you called me over here just after the holidays." Sandra said as she stormed into Stuart's makeshift office in the centre of London. "I have better things to do than chase half way around the world after your sorry arse."

"It's your job." Stuart replied calmly as he stared at the pile of scripts and papers that were strewn across his desk. "Besides, it's not like you had anything else to do while I've been away."

"No, I've only been fielding about a million calls for you and responding to all your mail, not to mention attending board meetings in your stead and making sure that Bruce doesn't have a heartattack while you are away."

"See, practically a holiday." Stuart said with a knowing grin. Sandra worked hard, he knew that, but she would have been the first to let him know if she had too much to do or that he was mistreating her.

"So, why am I in London? You know that I loathe this city almost as much as you do. It's not like it even has decent weather. Can you plan your next crisis for a nice caribbean beach?"

"Not likely." Stuart said darkly. "And it's not a crisis."

"So you realised that you missed me and wanted the pleasure of my company?" Sandra asked with disbelief.

"No, I need to get away."

"You can leave at any time Stuart, Ana isn't holding you hostage here."

"You know that I can't say no to her." Stuart said, reminding Sandra of the young man that she had first met years before. He seemed to be lacking in his usual confidence and she wondered what had happened to him since she had last seen him. Maybe it was being so close to his birth family that drained his spirit.

"I can book you a flight back to the states as soon as you like. If you route via another city you can probably leave later today."

"I don't want to leave England." Stuart said. "I just want to go home."

Sandra realised that it was not the country that was killing him, just being in London.

"I'll book a ticket and hire you a car in my name." Sandra said, typing things into her PDA as she spoke. "You can tell Ana that you have to return to New York for business and then drive north as soon as you get your things packed. She'll assume that I'm here to close up the house and won't ask anything else."

"You're a star." Stuart said.

"Don't thank me yet," Sandra replied. "I'm coming with you."

"Why?" Stuart asked with a frown.

"You're not the only one with family up north and I think it's about time that Dylan and Thomas remembered that they had an aunt."

"You just want to get out of work again." Stuart replied.

Sandra shook her head, she would let that one go because he was obviously stressed but wouldn't give him another chance to have a go.

"We'll leave in two hours." Sandra replied. "I'd better start making plans, and you can call Ana."

Stuart frowned but didn't object. He knew that despite having a secretary there were still some things that he had to do for himself, even if he didn't want to.

***

Vince was going to throttle Alex if he didn't spill his secret soon. His friend was one of the most melodramatic people he knew and usually his high maintenance personality was a relief from all the serious people that Vince knew but if Alex didn't tell him what he was smiling about soon then Vince would kill him and claim that it was justifiable homicide. When Alex knew something that you didn't he became unbearable and rather than just coming out and saying it would force you to ask twenty questions to get to the truth. If it wasn't for the fact that once you had guessed he spilled every minute detail then Vince would have tired of this game years ago.

"You've got a new boyfriend?" Vince guessed idly as he began to run out of options.

"No." Alex said, bubbling with excitement. "And you already guessed that twice."

"You're having a sex change operation."

"No." Alex answered, adding a giggle. "This is so good. You're never going to guess that I know."

"Know what?"

"You have to guess."

"Well, if I'm never going to guess then how am I supposed to?" Vince asked, hoping that the twist of logic might confuse Alex into telling him.

"I know your secret."

"I don't have a secret." Vince replied, trying to think over what he had done lately that was a mystery. Vince prided himself on being an open book and even if wearing his heart on his sleeve sometimes left him vulnerable to being hurt he would rather be brutally honest than have skeletons in his closet.

"Yes you do." Alex sing-songed. "And I know what it is."

"Fine." Vince said, playing Alex's bluff. "Well, you know, and clearly as it's my secret, I know. Let's just leave it at that."

"You bastard!" Alex said, changing tack as he realised that he was not going to win this game with Vince. "You could have told me."

"Then it wouldn't be a secret." Vince replied, still not having the foggiest idea what Alex was twittering on about.

"You know a famous artist and you didn't tell me."

"Is this about my award?" Vince asked, confused as to why that was a secret.

"Not you." Alex said rolling his eyes. "I mean Stuart Hardwick."

"I don't know..."

"Don't lie to me." Alex interupted. "I saw it."

"Saw what?"

"The picture of you, it's hanging in a gallery in London. You're such a prude it's no wonder you kept it a secret but there was no reason that you couldn't tell your best friend."

"Alex, I have no idea what you're talking about." Vince said.

Alex sighed.

"Fine, be that way." Alex said as he rooted around in his bag. "But tell me that this isn't the spitting image of you."

Alex sounded justified as he threw the envelope of photos down on the table. He had taken them with a disposable camera that he made Dane go out and buy after they had seen the picture.

"I never sat for this." Vince said.

Alex almost believed him until he saw the realisation dawn on Vince.

"What did you say the artist's name was?"

"Hardwick." Alex replied. "Stuart Hardwick."

"I know a Stuart Jones, but..." Vince's voice trailed off as a few of the puzzle pieces started to fall into place. "He was only my art teacher. He said he was an artist as well but..."

"Stuart Hardwick is more than an artist, he's a movie mogul and one of the most eligible men in Hollywood. I'm so jealous that I could scream. I can't believe that you didn't tell me that you knew him."

"I didn't know who he was, still don't know for sure." Vince said. "But I am sure as hell going to find some answers."

"And then you'll tell me the full story." Alex said, pouting that he was being kept out of the loop.

"Maybe." Vince replied, chewing his lip as he thought it through. There was really only one way that he was going to get answers.

***

***

Part 9

Peter was getting ready to go out to a New Year's Party when the doorbell rang. He half expected it to be Stuart, despite his godfather's assertion that he would not be back until later on in the new year, and was surprised that it was Vince instead.

Peter liked Vince, he had hoped that he would be the one to tame Stuart and help him come to terms with his legacy but when Stuart had disappeared without so much as a goodbye he was certain that he would never see the other man again. It made him wonder why Vince was stood on their doorstep now.

"Is your father home?" Vince asked as he looked over Peter's shoulder. "I need to talk to him."

"Now's not a good time." Peter replied curtly, convinced that Vince had something to do with Stuart's sudden departure. "We're about to go out."

"It won't take long." Vince added more urgently.

"Peter? Who is it?" Mark called from the other room. He came to stand behind his son and his face changed when he saw Vince. "Hi. Did you want to come in?"

"I need to talk to you." Vince said, his tone demanding that he be heard. "It's about Stuart."

Peter tensed when he heard that. He had known that Vince had something to do with his Godfather leaving.

"He's still away on business I'm afraid." Mark said. "But I can pass a message on to him. I'm sure that he was going to call you but he's been awfully busy."

"I guess it must be hard for him, working for Hardwick Entertainment as well as selling thousand dollar paintings." Vince replied cynically.

Mark's face fell as he realised that Vince had somehow found out the family's closely guarded secret. Peter started to shut the door on Vince, not wanting to hear anymore of what the man had to say, but Mark stopped him.

"Come in." Mark said, trying to remain as neutral as possible. "We shouldn't talk about this out here."

"Scared that someone might ruin your little secret?" Vince asked as he followed him into the lounge.

"No," Mark replied, "I'm worried that people around here will hear who Stuart is and his one bolthole will be overrun with Paparazzi and reporters."

"Why didn't he tell me?" Vince asked. "All those weeks and I thought we were friends, I thought that I could trust him."

"It's hard for Stuart to trust anyone."

"Where is he now?" Vince asked. "Why hasn't he called me?"

"I don't know." Mark replied truthfully.

There was a brief silence as Vince tried to digest the truth, there were so many questions that he didn't know where to start.

"Can I ask how you found out?" Mark asked.

Vince let out a short bark of laughter and scattered the photos on the table.

"Apparently I trusted Stuart a lot more than he trusted me."

"You sat for these?" Mark asked, looking through the pictures.

"I don't remember it." Vince said. "And you would have thought that I would remember something like that, but from the details it's definitely me."

Mark was silent for a minute as he looked at the loving way that Stuart had painted Vince. It was obvious, even in the grainy pictures, that Stuart felt something for Vince but that didn't explain why he had run out and left without an explanation, nor why he had not contacted the other man since.

"They're good." Mark said.

"I know." Vince replied. "Too good. At least for a community college art teacher."

Mark looked up sharply at the implied insult and Vince blushed.

"No offence."

"None taken." Mark replied. "I was never in Stuart's league as a painter. I preferred teaching others how to do it instead."

"Those who can do, those who can't teach." A voice said from behind them. The pair had been so busy in conversation that neither had heard Stuart come in.

"What are you doing here?" Mark asked, sounding more annoyed than he ought to. It was not that he didn't want his friend there, it was more that he was worried that Stuart would leave and not return when he found out that Vince knew.

"Well, glad to see I'm still welcome."

"I didn't mean it like that, it's just..."

"Is your business finished?" Vince asked, the anger and bitterness back in his voice. "Or did you just get bored of the bright lights of the big city? Surely there are premieres every night that someone like you could attend, not to mention the glittery gallery openings. I hear that your work goes down quite well with the Sloane Rangers and the Soho Set."

"You told him?" Stuart asked, his eyes narrowing as he turned on Mark.

"I think you did a good enough job of that yourself." Mark replied as he handed the photographs to Stuart. Stuart's face fell as he saw the photos of his artwork and knew that Vince had seen them.

"I can explain." Stuart said, his voice waivering with emotion. Mark realised then that there was definitely something between Stuart and Vince and he wondered how the two of them had not seen it themselves.

"I bet you and your rich friends had a good laugh at the talentless wankers at college while you were on your sabbatical." Vince said as he stood up. "Thought that it would be a good way to dupe some poor sad bastards I'm sure."

"Vince, I wasn't laughing at you." Stuart replied. "I really think that you're a very talented artist. If anything you inspired my work. The critics are calling this some of my best work in years."

"How do I know that you're telling the truth now?" Vince asked.

"Give me a chance to explain things, and if you still don't believe me then you can go. I swear that I won't sell the painting and you can pretend that this never happened."

Vince thought it over for a moment, he was hurt and confused but had to admit that he was more than a little intrigued as to why a successful and wealthy man would choose to slum it in Manchester rather than spend his time with his Hollywood peers. He also thought that he deserved an explanation and despite the weeks of separation he felt that Stuart merited at least the chance to be heard.

"Okay." Vince said. "But I want you to tell me the whole truth."

"Do you want me to stay?" Mark asked. "We have a party to go to but I can cancel."

"No, it's okay." Stuart replied. "I have a few things to do this evening, and I think it would be better if Peter didn't hear all of this. Some of it..."

"I know." Mark replied sympathetically as he squeezed Stuart's shoulder. "I'll leave my mobile on." With that he left and Stuart was alone with Vince for the first time since their evening together.

"Well?" Vince asked after a few moments silence.

"I don't know where to begin." Stuart said.

"How about the start." Vince suggested. "How did you end up owning a multi-million dollar film company?"

"It starts before then..." Stuart said. "It starts back when I was fifteen..."

***

***

Part 10

"It starts back when I was fifteen, I moved over here with my Mum and sister when my Dad died. Mum wanted to be closer to her sister and thought it would be a good time for us to move. I started at a new school halfway through the school year and felt as though I would never make any friends. I was a precocious teenager, had known that I was gay from an early age, and by the time I was sixteen I was well on my way to getting expelled from school. I was in detention one afternoon when I met Harry, like me he was rebelling against his parents but was a little further down the line than me. Harry had already been kicked out of three schools and after detention we ended up drinking White Lightning and smoking fags at the swing park behind the school. At first he was an inspiration to me and Harry ended up being my best friend and because we both finally had someone to watch our backs we figured that we wouldn't end up getting caught so much.

I was sixteen when Harry introduced me to drugs, it was just glue at first and everyone was doing it, so I thought what's the harm. By the time Harry started doing harder drugs we were already spending most of his substantial allowance and all of mine on getting booze and drugs to get high.

It was a laugh. There wasn't a lot to do in Manchester for a young teenage boy and it wasn't as if I was about to get a girlfriend and get laid. I would get drunk or stoned with Harry and then head on out to Canal Street while he hooked up with his girlfriend. It wasn't safe and I don't know how I made it through now without someone watching my back but I'm guess that I was just lucky. Luckier than Harry ended up being.

One night after we were drinking we decided to go for a walk. It wasn't that late, probably only ten, and Harry wanted to see the Christmas lights in the town. They were always better when you were stoned and couldn't make out the fake tinsel and fairy lights. We were walking alongside the Canal and all of a sudden he climbs up onto the railing and starts walking along, pretending to be a tightrope walker or somesuch. He was off his head and I was laughing my head off.

I saw it all go down as if it was slow motion, saw the moment that he slipped on the wet rail and went over the edge. I didn't realise until after he fell that he must have hit his head on the way down because he didn't come up straight away. I jumped in and dragged him out, tried to give him mouth to mouth but I wasn't really paying attention when we did it at school and I had no idea what I was doing."

"Shit." Vince said, as he heard the story. He would never have thought it of the usually cocky and confident Stuart but he could see that recounting this story was actually getting to him.

"That's just the beginning." Stuart replied.

"What happened to him?"

"By the time the paramedics got there he was already dead." Stuart replied. "The police were more interested in doing me for drugs than finding out what happened to my best friend. They didn't care that he had just died, or that I had seen it they cared about the fact that this was my second offence and that I could do time."

"But you didn't." Vince prompted, he knew that Stuart had gone to college and that couldn't have happened if he was in jail.

"No." Stuart agreed. "Turns out that Harry's Dad was rich as fuck and didn't want his dead son's name dragged through the mud so he hired me a hot shot lawyer and got me off with a caution. That was how I met Adam Hardwick."

"The lawyer?"

"No. Harry's father." Stuart replied. "Harrison Hardwick, it wasn't till his funeral that I realised that he was more than just a trust fund baby from Cheshire slumming it after being expelled from a couple of posh schools. Harry was the real deal, old money mixed with new money and just an added bit of Hollywood royalty thanks to his mother and grandfather who were part of the Chevalier Dynasty from America.

After Harry's death his father made it his personal mission to make sure that I got clean and kept up my grades at school. He said that he had lost his son but that he had gained another and that he wasn't going to let me end up like Harry. I started to knuckle down, more for the fact that Social Services were threatening to lock me up, than for him but actually it turned out that Adam and I were well suited, a lot better than he had Harry had ever been. Adam loved art, he had a Picasso in his office that I fell in love with the first time that I was summoned to see him and after he found out that I liked it he promised it to me if I passed my GCSE's. Adam was the one that got me into Art college after I ended up with less grades than I needed and he was the one that funded my first show.

I was in my twenties and halfway through my degree when he was diagnosed with Cancer. I didn't think anything of visiting him at home and talking as we always had. Adam was something of a surrogate father to me as well as paying my way through University and I wanted to give him something back."

"He's dead?" Vince asked, although it was probably a stupid question because Stuart was obviously using the past tense.

"Yeah, he died three months before my twenty-fifth birthday and left me everything."

"What about his family?"

"Harry was his family." Stuart replied. "I took that from him and he never once blamed me. Instead he left me with his legacy."

"You don't sound too happy about it."

"Harry once told me that it was expected that he would follow in his father's footsteps, that he would go into the family business and make his old man proud. My father didn't have a business and I was always jealous of Harry for that but I didn't realise what an albatross having a legacy could be. People had a lot of expectations of the heir to Hardwick enterprises and I learned quickly that you couldn't get away with doing what you wanted when you wanted if it interfered with business. I didn't realise at first what a huge thing this was, I tried to mix both my lives but it didn't work. I wasn't supposed to have this mantle, Harry was, I was never a Hardwick but if I had been I would have known how to live up to all that expectation so I changed my name and became Stuart Hardwick because that was who people expected me to be."

"I still don't understand what you were doing here or why you pretended to be someone that you weren't. You could have just told me who you were." Vince replied.

"That's what I am trying to tell you. I didn't lie to you, you met the real Stuart, the one that has a home to come back to and friends to come back to. Stuart Hardwick is the person that I pretend to be, people treat me differently when they think I'm rich and successful."

"You say that like it's a bad thing." Vince replied thinking of how hard it was to scrimp and save every month so that Hazel could make her mortgage repayments and put food on the table. He didn't see how having money could ever be a bad thing and certainly wouldn't be something that he would run away from.

"It can be." Stuart replied. "I feel suffocated by it all. There are days when I want to do nothing but paint."

"I would have thought that you of all people had the time to do that."

"But that's just it. The thing about having money is that you only have to work harder to keep it, and it's not just me but the 20,000 people that I employ. I can't just decide to fold the company when there are that many people relying on me."

Vince wasn't sure what to say to that.

"And I know that it's hard for you to believe when I say it but I never lied to you."

"What about the painting?" Vince asked. "Why did you do that?"

"I told you earlier that you inspire me." Stuart replied. "I meant more than your artwork. You, everything that you are, reminds me of what I have lost. Home. Family. Friends. You have all of that and despite having billions of dollars in the bank I don't have any of that."

"You have Mark and Peter."

"Not really." Stuart answered. "They don't need me as much as I need them."

"It's okay to need people Stuart."

"No, it's not." Stuart replied. "They always leave."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"You will now you know the truth." Stuart added sadly.

"I'm not going anywhere." Vince replied.

"You should." Stuart responded. "You should run like the wind."

"Well, it's a good thing that I don't do what I should." Vince replied. "Now, if we've finished with this lesbian bullshit we should hurry up and go. It's two for one night at Poptastic and I think you owe me a drink."

And just like that Stuart realised that Vince was forgiving him and was giving him a chance to remain friends. Stuart grasped the opportunity with both hands and thought that maybe, just maybe, there was a reason to stay in Manchester for a little bit longer.

***

***

Part 11

It felt strange hanging out with Stuart now that Vince knew who he was. Stuart hadn't changed as a person but Vince couldn't get over how rich his new friend was and was beginning to see him in a whole new light. There were small things that he had not realised before but now that he knew who Stuart was he would pick up the slight confidence in Stuart's walk or the air of disregard that he had for people that spoke of wealth and power. Stuart wasn't arrogant but he knew that he was rich and talented and now that Vince knew to look for it he could see that Stuart wasn't scared if others knew it too.

Since Stuart's revelation at New Year the pair of them had been out for a drink a few times but neither had mentioned art classes or how they had met. It was as if the truth had erected a wall between them, at least where art was concerned, and neither one wanted to breach it.

Vince was glad that Stuart had shared the truth with him but there was a frustration over the fact that their easy freindship was now overtaken by a level of awkwardness that Vince didn't like. It was as if they had opened one door but closed another.

Vince was growing more frustrated with College too and the replacement teacher that Mark had hired at the last minute to fill Stuart's shoes was nothing more than a blocked PhD student with a propensity for bullshitting his students into knowing that he knew what he was talking about where art was concerned. Stuart had known his stuff, had been to art college but more than that had lived and worked as an artist and had enough life experience to know that some of the students there would only ever draw their family pet for holiday cards or for recreation whereas the new teacher seemed to think that they were all in direct competition with him and felt the need to criticise at every turn.

Stuart, on the rare occasion that Vince saw him, seemed moody and depressed. Vince had tried to talk to him about it, telling him again that it didn't matter to Vince who he was, but that didn't seem to work and one night after the second time of Stuart telling him to Fuck off, Vince stood up to leave.

"Wait." Stuart said, pausing for a moment as he looked at Vince's retreating figure and knowing that this was the make or break point. "I didn't mean that."

"You sounded like you did." Vince replied, trying to keep the hurt out of his voice. The betrayal of Stuart lying to him still stung and despite the fact that he had told Stuart that it didn't matter to him who Stuart was there was a part of him that didn't like this new side to his friend.

"It's just..." Stuart sighed, rubbing his hand across his face as if he could wipe away the tension that was obvious in his eyes. "I'm supposed to be working. I'm supposed to have this one man show ready in a few weeks and I can barely pick up a pencil."

"You're blocked." Vince stated.

"No, it's more than that." Stuart answered. "I...It's like I can't do it anymore."

"I don't think it's something you forget how to do." Vince said with a small smile, burying his own hurt and taking a seat again as he realised that Stuart really needed to talk about this. "It's a bit like riding a bike..."

"I remember how to do it in here." Stuart said, tapping his temple. "But it's like I've forgotten it in here." He said, moving his hand to his chest and touching briefly on where his heart should be.

"Have you talked to anyone else about this?" Vince asked. "Maybe if you explained to your agent that you need more time..."

"I can't, Vince. People are counting on me..." Stuart tailed off and stared at his drink on the table but he didn't need to say anything else. Vince knew what the problem was. It was a feeling that Vince had suffered from every day since he left school, the weight of the world on your shoulders and you realised that other people were depending on you to get up and go and do something that you hated to provide for them. That you weren't a child anymore and that you had responsibilities.

"Come with me." Vince said, standing and holding his hand out to Stuart. Stuart looked up, a frown marring his otherwise perfect features, Vince didn't wait and beckoned Stuart to follow him with a two finger 'come on' motion.

"Where?" Stuart asked, standing but not moving any closer to Vince.

"We're going dancing."

"What?" Stuart asked, it was barely nine and nothing would be filling up for hours.

"You need to relax a bit, let your hair down."

"You're a fine one to talk." Stuart replied, because Vince was one of the few people he knew that worried about every eventuality.

"Well then, I'm obviously the person to show you how to relax and let yourself go." Vince said with a self-effacing grin that Stuart could not help but return. He took Vince's hand and followed him, feeling for the first time as if he was free enough to let someone else take control.

***

***

Vince hadn't meant it as a come on when he had invited Stuart out, in fact it had been the last thing on his mind when he had said that they should go dancing, but as he felt Stuart press close to him on their way into the already crowded club he was glad that he had suggested it. Stuart needed to get out and unwind and being seen with a great looking man could only add to Vince's reputation and perhaps he would get laid out of it as well.

Stuart, not usually known for sticking in any one place for long without cruising, surprised Vince by pulling him straight out on to the dancefloor and pulling him close. They stayed there, moving to the music, for three songs straight before Stuart ventured closer. For a brief moment Vince thought that Stuart was going to kiss him but instead he leaned in, close enough to be intimate, and shouted over the music.

"This was a great idea." Stuart said, pulling back to reveal the large smile on his face. Vince could feel the smile all the way down to his toes as he realised that he was returning a similar grin.

"Yeah."

"We should do this more often." Stuart said, and for a moment Vince wondered if this was his cue to move on and let Stuart find his date for the night but instead of brushing him off Stuart pulled him close again and started to dance again, this time in earnest. Vince felt the thigh pressed against his own, felt it shift slightly before Stuart was grinding against him in a move that was more sexual than anything else and Vince felt his cock harden. He thought that Stuart was teasing him, giving him a taste of what he could not have, until he realised that Stuart was oblivious to anything but the music, his eyes shut as he gave himself over to the rhythm and beat. Vince paused a moment, wondering if he was not taking advantage of his friend at this most raw of moments but then felt himself pulled over to and throwing caution to the wind he joined Stuart who was lost in the music.

Anyone watching the pair on the dancefloor could have mistaken them for lifelong friends or perhaps even lovers, they seemed to move with a synchronicity that you rarely saw outside of those that were intimately familiar with each other. There was a passion in the darker ones moves, as if he was just discovering himself for the first time, and it seemed as if he was taking the other along for the ride. What was obvious to anyone that was watching was the sexual tension that was radiating from the couple as they moved and it was three songs before anyone approached them.

"Fancy a threesome?" Someone asked, pulling Vince from the erotic ideas that were playing in his mind as he moved against Stuart. Vince felt a hand glide across his arse and stiffened at the touch for a moment before he felt another hand, he looked up to see the frown on Stuart's face as he removed the appendage from Vince and pushed the other man away.

"Fuck off."

"Possessive, much." The man spat at Stuart. "You shouldn't bring him out in public if you don't want to share."

Vince opened his mouth, about to protest that he was not with Stuart and that the man could have him if he wanted but found that Stuart was glaring at the other man and then pulled Vince into a snog, kissing him until Vince had to pull away panting. Stuart met the man's eyes, his actions clear as he said one final word on the matter to hammer the point home.

"Mine." Stuart said possessively, and then before Vince could protest he pulled him into another fierce snog leaving no doubts in the mind of any onlooker just who Vincent Tyler belonged to.

***

***

Part 12

Vince managed to hold it together long enough to drag the suddenly domineering Stuart outside before he turned on him.

"What the *fuck* was that?" Vince asked as he forced Stuart to a stop against the wall, looking out at the Canal so that he would not have to meet Stuart's eyes.

"You can't honestly tell me that you were interested in that prick." Stuart responded.

"No, maybe not." Vince said, not even remembering what the guy had looked like. "But it would have been nice to have the option."

Stuart paused, looking at Vince and then joined him in looking out over the Canal.

"You deserve better than that, Vince." Stuart said honestly.

"Maybe." Vince agreed. "But it's not like I've had a lot of offers in the last six months."

"You surprise me." Stuart answered.

"Oh, that's right. Have a good laugh at my expense. Poor pathetic Vincent Tyler, hasn't had a shag in six months. We can't all have looks and money to get us what we want." He retorted.

"I'm not laughing Vince." Stuart said. "I'm just surprised that the people of Manchester can be so blind."

"Yeah, well, they don't want some boring, thirtysomething supermarket manager in the midst of a midlife crisis. It's hardly a newsflash to me that I'm not attractive."

"Fuck off." Stuart said, daring to make a move and wrapping his arms around Vince, resting his chin on Vince's shoulder and placing a kiss on his cheek. "You're fantastic, and anyone that says otherwise must be blind or stupid."

"Yeah, right." Vince said. "I appreciate the sentiment but I don't need your pity."

"It's not pity." Stuart said, he pulled Vince back against him, rubbing his hard cock against Vince's buttocks to emphasis his point and then added. "Does that feel like pity."

"It's just the dancing." Vince replied, trying to dig himself out of what was rapidly becoming an uncomfortable conversation. He and Stuart were friends, it wasn't anything more than that. It couldn't be. They were from separate worlds and it would never work between them if they even tried, not that Stuart did boyfriends or long term relationships from all Vince had heard.

"I've danced with hundreds, maybe thousands of other blokes before tonight, none of them have ever made me this hard or this horny." Stuart whispered as he continued his assault by licking Vince's neck and nipping his neck and earlobe.

"Stop it." Vince said, although the protest was weak and died on his lips when one of Stuart's hands moved from the vicelike grip he had on his waist and moved down to cup his erection.

"Now, try telling me that you don't want this as much as I do." Stuart said as he squeezed Vince's hard on.

"I already told you it's been six months, it's like fucking Pavlov's dogs..." Vince said but the excuse sounded weird even to his ears.

"Let's go back to yours." Stuart said. "see if we can't do something about this and do something about it being six months since you last had a decent shag."

Vince battled with the feelings building inside him as he tried to think of another way out of this. It was not that he didn't want this, every nerve ending in his body wanted this, but he and Stuart were friends and Vince didn't want to ruin that for anything. He tried to picture Stuart, the billionaire playboy, in his pokey little flat and couldn't see it. He didn't think that Stuart would judge him but he didn't want to show him his place either.

"We can't."

"Then we'll get a hotel." Stuart replied, the emotion deepening his voice and bringing out the hint of Irish brogue that elocution lessons had failed to kill completely. "please, vince..."

The need in Stuart's voice was so great that Vince felt his defences crumbling, felt all of the reasons why this was a bad idea buried under his own need both to get off and to help his friend.

"Okay." Vince said weakly, and before he knew it they were in the back of a taxi and Stuart was on his phone to someone making arrangements, one hand on his phone and the other locked tightly as he held Vince's hand.

***

***

Vince shouldn't have been surprised when they pulled up outside the Mercury hotel, one of Manchester's up and coming boutique hotels. He should not have been surprised that they had not a room, but a suite, and that the massive bed was already turned down.

Coming away from Canal Street and the magic of the moment they had shared earlier, Vince could almost talk himself out of this and on the ride over in the back of the cab he had almost persuaded himself that he could say no but one look into Stuart's face and his newfound resolve crumbled again as Stuart pulled him close and kissed him.

There was less intensity now, less need and more concentration on what the kiss meant, on the promise of what the kissing would lead to and what Stuart wanted and needed from Vince that night.

Vince allowed himself to give in to the kiss, allowed himself to forget the thoughts in his head that were telling him that this was a bad idea and give himself over to the feeling of what he wanted and what Stuart wanted from him. Stuart pulled out of the kiss long enough to manouvre them to the bed before he started to undress Vince, each button that he undid revealed a little more skin and Stuart made no hesitiations in covering each newly revealed area with a kiss or a nip before continuing his path downward. Vince had thought that Stuart would stop when he reached his naval but instead he unzipped Vince's trousers and slid them down his thighs, taking boxers down with them to reveal what he had wanted all night.

"You're still dressed." Vince pointed out feebly when Stuart moved to get Vince's socks and shoes. He was feeling exposed and vulnerable and not for the first time wondering if and when the other shoe would drop and Stuart would realise that he was making a mistake.

Stuart smiled lasciviously, sliding off Vince's socks and shoes and then removing the last items of Vince's clothes before he spoke.

"We've got time." He said, standing up and starting to strip off his clothes. For a moment Vince wasn't sure where he was supposed to look, embarassed by his own nudity and feeling a little helpless, he found that he could do nothing but watch as Stuart undressed and then crawled up the bed towards him.

"Stuart..." Vince said softly as his friend kissed him soundly on the mouth, deepening it almost immediately into a slow, searing snog.

"Shh..." Stuart said. "I'll take care of you."

Vince felt a hand snake down between them, bringing their cocks together and then slowly wanking them as Stuart continued the assualt on his mouth.

Vince wasn't sure what he had expected, a fast and furtive fuck bent over the back of the expensive sofa in the hotel, or perhaps the full fuck but this slow and agonising wank that led to an exquisite orgasm as he spilled his seed over Stuart's flawless skin a few moments later was not it. Stuart climaxed almost at the same time as him and then collapsed at his side with a sated look on his face.

Vince waited a moment, not sure if he should do or say something or if he should just get up and head home now that they were done. Despite Stuart's words back on Canal Street Vince wasn't sure if this was a friendly buddy fuck or just another one night stand.

"Stuart..." He started, his friend rolled over and faced him in bed, kissing him on the cheek before speaking.

"You were right." Stuart said. "I just needed to get out and relax." With that he rolled out of bed and headed for his clothes, Vince was about to do the same when Stuart stilled him.

"Stay here." He said to Vince, placing a soft kiss on Vince's forehead.

"But..."

"Rest, take a swim in the jacuzzi bath or enjoy the suite." Stuart said. "I won't be long."

"Where are you going?" Vince asked.

"The studio." Stuart replied, as if that was the most obvious answer in the world. "You inspired me." And with that he left, leaving Vince to wonder if this was how the Mona Lisa had felt and if this was why she was not smiling.

***

***

Part 13

"I thought you said that you were blocked." Sandra said to Stuart the next afternoon as he was on the phone to her asking her to order more supplies. Stuart had worked almost non-stop through the night and well into the morning after his time with Vince. It was as if his eyes had been opened and he was seeing the world from a completely different point of view.

"I was." Stuart answered, wondering if he had enough ochre or if he should add some to the order. "I got over it."

"God, please tell me this isn't going to be on the front page of the Sun tomorrow - artist in sordid sex shocker."

"Movie Mogul does Manchester." Stuart mused.

Sandra laughed. She was glad that Stuart had gotten out of whatever funk he had been stuck in and was sure that Ana would be ecstatic that he was working again but it still worried her that he had been depressed at all. Sandra knew Stuart, knew what he was like and knew that this must be some new bit on the side that he had discovered. She hoped that it was not one of the gold diggers that so often crowded around him, in New York Sandra could protect Stuart but not when he was so far away.

"So, what's his name?"

"What makes you think that there is anything other than my own genius involved in the sudden inspiration?"

"Oh, please." Sandra retorted. "I've met you. I know that you're far too lazy to use the genius that God gave you to actively find inspiration."

"I don't hear any complaints from the men in Manchester."

"That's prowess, not genius." Sandra replied. "And from what I hear it's overrated."

"Fuck off." Stuart replied.

There was a brief lull in the conversation and then Stuart continued.

"So, did you get all of that?" He asked.

"Yes." Sandra replied, looking down at her own list of items. "I still don't understand why you can't just go out and buy it yourself."

"Because it's what I pay you for." Stuart responded. "Besides, Charles likes you better than me."

"I should hope so, " Sandra replied. "He's my brother."

Stuart laughed and hung up, turning his attention back to his painting.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Sandra looked at the list of supplies and started to type in her brother's number. She would get to the bottom of this even if she had to involve every member of her extended family to investigate. After the business she had put Charles' way he owed her one and Sandra was going to collect to find out just what was going on with Stuart.

***

***

Vince had expected not to see Stuart again after thei brief encounter, but he had decided to stay at the hotel on the off chance that Stuart came back and so was there when the flowers arrived with the room service breakfast that Stuart had called to order for him. From most people it would have been seen as a polite kiss off, Vince had thought it was exactly that at first, but then the card on the flowers from Stuart told Vince exactly where he stood.

"You inspire me."

Not perhaps the three words that Vince would want to hear from Stuart but a promise of sorts that this may not be the last time. More importantly it told Vince where he would find Stuart. A painter, when inspired, would go straight to his studio to work and Vince knew that was where his lover would be.

There was a part of Vince that was telling him to walk away. Not just to walk but to run, run like the wind, in the opposite direction from all that Stuart's presence in his life promised but Vince had never been one to listen to reason. His head may be telling him that this would all end in tears but his heart was telling him to grab on with both hands and enjoy the ride.

Not for the first time Vince had already decided to follow his heart, and without hesitation he headed out after breakfast, knowing by rote the way to Stuart's space.

***

***

Stuart was halfway through his third painting, just throwing the colour down on to the canvas, when the knock came. He paused a moment, not wanting to stop his flow and not wanting to let whoever it was get away, torn and indecisive a second knock made up his mind.

"What?" Stuart asked as he flung the door open.

"Is that anyway to greet your favourite supplier?" Charles asked, a grin on his face as he entered the studio, his arms full of bags and boxes of supplies.

"I didn't expect you so quickly." Stuart replied.

"Stuart, it's one in the afternoon, you called my sister two hours ago and she said it was urgent." Charles said, putting his wares down on the first available surface and taking the opportunity to look at the two completed canvasses that were drying to one side and the partially completed third. "Sandra said you only started this morning." He said, sounding confused.

"I was inspired." Stuart replied with a wide grin.

"Glad to be of service," Vince replied, entering the studio through the door which Stuart had forgotten to close. His own grin matched Stuart's. "Although, I'm starting to think that you've already replaced me." Vince added when he saw Charles. He tried to make it a joke but there was a moment of worry when he thought that this other man was someone that Stuart cared about, that perhaps Vince was just a momentary distraction.

"Fuck off." Charles replied. "I wouldn't shag Stuart Jones for all the tea in china."

"Or for all the money in my bank account."

"Only because I know you, I seem to remember that you were such a tight arse you wouldn't even buy a round of drinks." Charles recalled.

"A nice, tight, arse." Stuart replied. "Don't tell me that you didn't fancy me back then."

"I was young and naïve." Charles replied. "With age comes wisdom."

"You mean you got old and fat and realised that I wouldn't touch you with a barge pole more likely." Stuart replied.

Vince watched the banter with amazement, it reminded him of when Stuart was with Mark.

"You got old too, Jonesy." Charles replied.

"Have you known each other long?" Vince asked, feeling a little left out by the exchange.

"Forever." Stuart replied, sensing that Vince felt a little left out and walking to him, wrapping his arms around him and using one hand to shut the door behind him. Once they were secure Stuart placed a soft kiss on Vince's mouth and then smiled. "I've been wanting to do that all morning."

"Looks like you've been busy." Vince replied, looking at the abstracts that lay on the floor.

"Thought if I got my work done early we could go out again tonight." Stuart replied.

Charles was shocked to hear this, it was not like Stuart to see the same man in two consecutive nights. Stuart had a harem and no one was allowed to get their feet too cosily under the table because Stuart Jones didn't do commitment and he certainly didn't do boyfriends. Usually they got a night out once or twice a month if they were lucky.

"Could do." Vince replied.

"I should be going." Charles said, feeling as though he was interupting a private moment.

"Don't be jealous." Stuart replied, pulling back slightly but keeping one hand at Vince's waist. "You've had twelve years to have your turn."

"You were at college together?" Vince asked, doing the maths in his head.

"Charles was an artist until he sold out and became a grocer."

"I hardly call regional sales manager for the artdepot a 'grocer'," Charles replied. "and I was top sales manager for the last three quarters."

"That's so cool." Vince replied. "That you get to sell something that you're really into."

"It's a blessing and a curse." Charles agreed.

"Vince is a manager at Harlo's." Stuart explained. "I guess it's difficult to get excited by brussel sprouts and binbags."

"That's right, laugh it up." Vince said, feeling a little hurt. Stuart kissed his neck in apology and Vince instantly forgave him.

"Right, must go." Charles said, definitely knowing that he was about to interupt something judging by the feral look on Stuart's face. "Stuart, don't be a stranger, we'll have to get together for a drink one evening to catch up."

"Go on then." Stuart said. "And be sure to tell Sandra that his arse is as tight as her face after that lift I paid for."

Charles had the decency to blush slightly as he realised that Stuart knew exactly why he was there and why he had come in person. He took that as his cue to leave before Stuart pushed it further.

Vince frowned as Charles left.

"Charles' sister is my personal assistant." Stuart replied. "You don't have to worry about it. She just worries that you have designs on my money."

"Oh I do." Vince replied, the smile belying his comments as he leaned in to kiss Stuart. "But it's really just your body I'm after."

"Well then," Stuart said, dragging Vince to the ratty old couch. "It's all yours."

***

***

Part 14

Stuart lived his life with the same all-consuming passion that he used when he was painting and it was amazing to Vince how quickly the other man filled his senses and took over his life. Vince had never had a boyfriend who was so attentive and yet so thoughtless at the same time. One minute Stuart would be fucking the brains out of Vince and the next he would be returning to his studio as if nothing had happened and back to work.

Vince had tried to talk to Stuart about it but his lover was maddeningly silent when it came to putting any definition on what Vince meant to him or what the exact nature of their relationship was. Stuart was an artist, he felt that he could express himself better in mediums other than words and while his love-making was fast, fiery and definitely fun there was a part of Vince that wondered if it would ever be more than that. After the morning with Charles Stuart had not talked about anything that mattered and had instead focussd on Vince and his art, according to Stuart they were the only things that mattered.

It had been almost a week since they had first slept together when Vince finally decided that he needed to get back out on the street and reconnect with his life and friends. He knew that Alex would forgive him a few days but if he was gone longer than that then there would be tricky questions asked and Vince was not sure that he was ready to answer them or that he had the correct answers to give anyway. Alex, who had come from a background of privelege, would not understand that Vince was not getting anything from Stuart other than good sex. Alex would expect either a financial arrangement or a love job because that was all he could understand.

"Where are you off to?" Stuart asked as Vince slid out of bed. It felt strange to be getting up to go out but Stuart had pulled him into the bedroom after lunch and they had lazed there for a few hours after another bout of exhaustive lovemaking.

"I've got to go out and meet Alex." Vince said, although it was a lie that he didn't have plans he knew that Alex would be where he always was on a Thursday night.

"Well, wait a minute and I'll come with you."

"No, I..." Vince paused, not sure how to say that he wanted some time to himself.

"Oh." Stuart said. "Okay."

"No, I mean...It's not what you think." Vince said as he saw the crestfallen look on Stuart's face. "I just...It's been a while since I saw Alex and I just wanted to spend some time with him."

"It's okay, really." Stuart said. "I should probably go back to the studio anyway."

Vince wanted to argue, wanted to say to Stuart that he had changed his mind but he knew that the words were out there now and he couldn't take them back. Despite not having defined their relationship it seemed that this was more than just sex to Stuart and the thought that Vince might be going out with another man had hurt him. Vince wanted to take that hurt away, wanted to retract the words and make them unsaid but he couldn't, so instead he headed out of the bedroom and towards his bathroom. He would see Alex and deal with Stuart afterwards.

***

***

"Hiya, love." Hazel said as he sat down at their table later that evening. "I told you he would tip up sooner or later." She said to Alex, and the assembled crowd of Bernie, Alex and Dane.

"Thought you might have decided to start dating girls or something. Either that or you'd grown tired of us now you've made *new* friends." Alex said and Vince was suddenly aware that he had barely seen his friend since Alex's revelations about Stuart. Vince was surprised that the whole of Canal Street didn't know that he was dating someone, but then that would be the truth and Vince hadn't spoken to Alex since he had started to really date Stuart.

"It's been a crazy few weeks." Vince replied. "Work is always busy after Christmas with returns and all."

Alex looked away, not sure whether he was ready to believe Vince, but then nodded as if the answer satisfied his hurt sense of pride. It was not just Alex that Vince had been ignoring, it was everyone, and that seemed to alleviate some of Alex's feeling of rejection.

"It's always mad at work." Hazel said. "You just need to learn to care less about it."

Although secretly Hazel admired Vince's diligence and the way that he was always prepared to look after his family, she wanted him to branch out a little and start to think of himself a bit more. There would come a time when she would not be there and she didn't want Vince to wake up one morning the wrong side of forty and wonder what he had done with his life.

"So, what have I missed?" Vince asked, wanting to turn the conversation away from him.

"You'll never guess who damp Dave was out with last night..." Alex started animatedly. Vince leaned back in his seat, only too happy to allow Alex's words to wash over him as he relaxed in the familiar surroundings of a regular night out. He didn't have to think about his conflicting emotions about his relationship with Stuart while he was here and this was just what he needed to take his mind off things for a few hours.

Alex was halfway through a story about an alleged incident involving a friend of a friend and a certain boyband member when Dane interupted his flow.

"Oh. My. God." He said, showing an uncharacteristic wave of enthuasiasm. "Would you look at the arse on that?" He said as he stared towards the door.

Alex, always one to spy a new candidate for Canal Street's rear of the year, looked over and Vince followed their eyeline as he spotted the nice rear end that was cupped in a pair of fantastic jeans. It was only when his eyes made their way up a strong back to a familiar set of curls that he realised who it was that his friends were looking at.

"You should go and speak to him." Hazel said to Vince as she saw the obvious interest in Vince's eyes. "It's been six months, you could do with a shag to take your mind off work."

"Mum!" Vince protested, even after all this time he was still not confident with his mother knowing the ins and outs of his sex life.

"What?" She asked, as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. "Tell me it hasn't been."

Vince blushed, not because it had been six months but because it hadn't been, he was on the verge of telling her that it hadn't actually and that he could still feel the last time he had been fucked when Alex broke his flow of concentration.

"Well, if you're not going to go after him..." Alex said, sliding out of the booth and heading onto the dancefloor.

"Alex, wait..." Vince tried to protest but it was too late and his friend was already halfway there.

Vince could do little but watch as the scene played out.

"Hiya. I'm Alex." Alex said. "You must be new around here..."

"More like this is a return visit." Stuart replied wondering if he had stumbled across his target on his first sweep of the club.

"Well, I'm glad that you decided to come back." Alex replied. "Is this trip for business or pleasure."

"A little of both, I hope." Stuart said as he smiled his trademark wolfish grin. Alex looked as if he was about to swallow his own tongue, and for a moment Stuart wondered if he had overdone it, so he decided to keep things casual. "Are you here alone or are you with friends?"

"Friends." Alex said, waving vaguely towards the back of the club. "But we didn't have any solid plans." Stuart smiled knowing that was code for the fact that he wasn't there alone if the pick up was creepy but if he was hot then he would be able to go home with him and not annoy anyone.

"Well, how about I buy us some drinks and you introduce me." Stuart replied. "Like you said, I'm new around here and it would be nice to meet some friendly face."

Alex seemed torn between sharing this now person with his friends and keeping him all to himself.

"If I'm going to introduce you, you'll have to tell me your name."

"I'm Stuart."

Alex mulled it over, trying to remember if he had heard any tales about a strange visitor called Stuart, as he headed back to his table. He was drawing a blank until he saw the confused look that crossed Vince's face. Alex was known for being self-absorbed but even he realised what was happening as Stuart smiled that same wolfish smile at Vince that he had shown to Alex.

"Stuart, this is Dane, Bernie, Hazel and I believe that you already know Vince." He said as he sat down.

"Vince, you didn't say you knew him." Hazel said.

"I'm Vince's dirty little secret." Stuart said as he took a seat next to Vince and threw a possessive arm around his lover.

"I thought you were working." Vince whispered harshly as Stuart leaned intimately close to him.

"I was." Stuart whispered in response. "But it seems that I lost inspiration after you left."

"So, Stuart..." Hazel started. "What is it that you do?"

"I'm between jobs at the moment." Stuart replied.

"You mean you're not..." Alex looked confused for a moment, wondering if he had been wrong about this being Vince's artist friend.

"This is Stuart Jones." Vince replied, looking to Alex. "My former art teacher."

"Former?" Hazel asked. "What happened?"

"It was a short term contract." Stuart responded casually.

A dark look crossed Hazel's face as she wondered if this was another Dominic Baxter, only after Vince's kindly nature and his meagre earnings, she wasn't about to let that happen.

"Well, what are you doing now?" Hazel asked.

"I'm considering a few options." Stuart replied, never letting the grilling affect him.

"Well, I hope that one of them isn't my being kept by my son."

"Mum!" Vince said, turning to look at Stuart and opening his mouth to apologise. Stuart leaned in and kissed him, quieting any protests with a snog.

"Actually, Hazel," Stuart replied while Vince was still breathless from the kiss, "I was planning on being the one to keep your son."

Hazel opened her mouth to speak, to protest, to say something to that challenge but Vince had regained his composure and was not going to let Stuart stir it any more.

"Come on, we're dancing." Vince said, with a confidence that Hazel had not seen in a long time. She thought that Stuart would protest, Dominic would have done, but instead it was her turn to be speechless when Stuart smiled and acquiesced to Vince's declaration. She watched as the two boys moved towards the dancefloor, hands clasped together, and wondered when her little boy had grown up and settled down.

***

"What are you doing here?" Vince asked once they were out of earshot of his friends and family.

"I missed you." Stuart replied as he pulled Vince closer to him and slid his arms around Vince's waist. Vince was reminded of the last time that they had been out and found his body reacting to the memories.

"Stuart, I only left a couple of hours ago."

"I can't work without you." Stuart continued, kissing a path along Vince's neck and starting to unbutton his shirt so that he had more access. Vince, concious that they were still in public, stilled Stuart's hands and forced his lover to look up at him.

"You're not getting away with it that easily."

"Fine." Stuart said, pulling away. "I wanted meet my competition. I wanted to know who it was that my lover was leaving my bed to meet."

Stuart hated that he sounded like a whiny child but he had gotten used to Vince being around and he didn't want to think that there was anyone that would take that away. Stuart was used to people doing what he wanted them to do and wasn't used to people standing up to him.

"Stuart, you know about Alex. You've heard me talk about Alex." Vince reasoned. "He's just a friend."

Vince had to admit that he was a little flattered that Stuart was so jealous but he was not sure that he could handle a possessive boyfriend when he was just discovering his independence.

"Some friend." Stuart replied. "He was ready to abandon you at the first sign of a shag."

"And not even a good shag." Vince teased.

"Oh, is that right?" Stuart replied as he teased Vince in return. "That's not what you said a few hours ago."

"Yeah, well, I didn't realise that you were so high maintenance a few hours ago." Vince replied, continuing his teasing. He realised that he had gone too far when Stuart stiffened and pulled away. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean..." Vince began but Stuart's face was shuttered and he was closed of to Vince.

"No, I'm sorry." Stuart said. "I shouldn't have come here..."

And with that Stuart headed off through the crowds disappearing into the throng of bodies and leaving Vince standing alone in the centre of the dancefloor.

"Fuck!" Vince swore and wondered if he could make it up to Stuart or if he had lost him for good.

***

***

Part 15

Stuart pushed through row after row of people until he found his way onto the main street and carried on walking until he was down a side street and away from the crowds of people. A self doubt that he had not felt in years overcame him as he realised that Vince was right and that he was turning into the kind of sycophantic stalker that he had come to Manchester to get away from. This was why Stuart didn't usually let anyone stay more than once. Once feelings got involved and people started trying to categorize those feelings Stuart always ended up fucking up.

Taking deep breaths Stuart fought back the tears that were threatening to fall as he tried to tell himself that he had not completely ruined things with Vince but even as he did so he knew that he had messed up. Vince had wanted some time to himself, usually that was something that Stuart would more than understand, but for some reason he had not wanted to give him even that. Stuart wanted Vince all to himself and resented the fact that he had to share him.

Now he had ruined it and he would be lucky if Vince even wanted to be his friend. Stuart was on new territory here and had no idea what he was supposed to do to make things up to Vince.

Stuart's natural instincts kicked in at that moment and he was waiting for an answer before he even became conciously aware that he had dialled his phone.

"You better not be calling me to arrange a wedding." Sandra said as she answered her phone.

"Sandy?" Stuart asked, using the familiar nickname that he had not used in so many years. He sounded broken and lost and Sandra's tone immediately changed as she wondered what had done this.

"Stuart, what's wrong?"

"I fucked up."

"Do you need me to book you a flight home?" She asked, although New York was not really Stuart's home he was in no mood to quibble. Sandra wondered if his silence was supposed to be read as consent or refusal so she pushed forward with another question hoping that she would get an answer. "Do you want me there?"

Stuart didn't respond, he was too lost in his own thoughts to answer but this time his silence spoke volumes to Sandra.

"I'll be on the next flight out." She said, hanging up and praying that he would last until she got there. She should probably call someone but there was no one else that she trusted with Stuart when he was like this.

Stuart stared at the phone for a moment before sliding it into his pocket and calmly walking along the Canal not sure where he was headed. He could go to Mark and Peter's but it hadn't really felt like home since he had started up with Vince, he could head to his hotel but it held too many memories of his time with his lover and so he carried on walking, not really caring where he ended up. Sometime around dawn Stuart realised that he had been up all night and hailed a cab to take him to the airport. He found his way to the arrivals lounge and fell asleep in one of the chairs. Sandra found him there a few hours later when she arrived.

***

***

Sandra sighed as she watched Stuart stare at the same mark on the wall that he had been staring at for the last twenty minutes. She was tired, she was cranky but most of all she was worried about the man that had come to be more of a friend than a boss to her over the last few years. She had never seen Stuart like this and that in itself was enough to make her wonder who this man was and what had happened between the two of them.

The non-responsive pod person that had taken over her boss' body when Sandra found him had shrugged when Sandra asked where he was staying, he had shaken his head when she asked if he wanted her to call Mark and that was all that he had done to indicate he was aware of her presence. Sandra had managed to get him into the back of a taxi and from there she had gotten a room in a small hotel where she knew that neither of them would be bothered. Now she was trying to figure out what she should do next.

Sandra thought about who she could call or what she could do. The list of people that knew about Stuart's double life was small and even smaller was the list of people that he would trust with the secrets of his heart.

"Do you think he's laughing at me?" Stuart asked suddenly.

"Who?" Sandra asked, wondering if Stuart felt ready to share now.

"Adam." Stuart replied.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he always used to say to me that I'd understand one day. That I would realise that there was more to life than just finding the next fuck. I was just wondering if he's laughing at me now. Wherever he is."

"He's probably smiling down at you, Stuart." Sandra replied, trying to keep her voice calm and not send him back into shock. "All Adam ever wanted was for you to be happy."

"I don't deserve to be happy."

"Stuart..." Sandra chided gently, knowing that this was the sort of conversation that he usually had after half a bottle of whisky. She didn't want to indulge his depression but she would not belittle it either. Being an artist Stuart lived on the edge of his emotions and she never knew what would send him into another direction with his feelings.

Sandra watched as Stuart turned back in on himself and for a moment she wondered if she had gone too far, but then she saw him stiffen and reach into his jacket pocket. His phone, which must have been on silent, was vibrating against the back of the chair he sat in. Stuart took out the phone and placed it on the table and turned it off but in the few brief seconds that the display had been visible Sandra had seen the name. That, along with her information from Charles and her own investigations, was enough to tell her what was going on and she had already started to formulate a plan of what she would do next.

"You should try to get some sleep." Sandra said to Stuart as she stood up. "I'm going to check in with the office and make sure that they know I'll be working remotely for a few days."

Stuart didn't respond. Sandra didn't expect him too. She wished she could stay but she had somewhere else to be.

***

***

Vince was going out of his mind with worry as he tried to think of any other way of contacting Stuart. He had tried Mark's house, the hotel room that Stuart had rented indefinitely when they had started up together, Stuart's cell and even visited the studio but there was no sign of his lover and Vince was starting to worry that the picture of a temperamental artist was more than just a stereotype. He hoped that Stuart had not done something rash and hurt himself over the misplaced words that Vince had spoken.

It was after six the following morning when Vince finally made it home, it had been over 24 hours since he had seen Stuart and he was weary and a part of him wanted to give up and go to sleep but another part of him would not give up just yet on Stuart.

Sitting on the doorstep of his building was a woman that looked as if she had slept all night on his doorstep. She had a world-weary expression on her face and was huddled into what looked to be an expensive coat. For a moment Vince wondered if the bag ladies in his neighbourhood had gone upmarket but there was something about her that screamed of money even if her position did not.

"Can I help you?" Vince asked as he looked down at her. "Are you lost?"

"I'm waiting for someone." She replied.

Vince ran down a mental checklist of the other occupants of his building and unless she was looking to score he was coming up blank.

"Who're you looking for?" Vince asked.

"Vince Tyler."

"And why do you want to speak to him?" Vince asked, remembering a scene from a cop show he'd seen once that told him not to tell her who he was until he knew what she wanted. Maybe Hazel had defaulted on one of her many loans and they were coming to look for him, but somehow Vince didn't think that they made bailiffs this pretty.

"It's about a mutual friend." She replied just as cryptically, and Vince's mind started to piece together a few bits of the jigsaw that he would have seen before except for his lack of sleep. What had Stuart said, Vince thought to himself, Charles' sister Sandra was his personal assistant and she had been worried about his designs on Stuart's money. Apparently she was here for a follow up visit in person.

"You must be Sandra." Vince replied, the surprise that he knew who she was showed on her face and Vince wondered if he had risen in her estimations at all or if she still saw him as a gold digger. "You'd better come in."

"Thanks." Sandra said as she stood from her spot on his doorstep so that he could get to the door and then she followed him in and up the two flights of stairs to his flat.

Vince paused and pushed the door open, allowing her through, and then pushed it shut with a little more effort than she thought was needed. The door slammed loudly and it made Sandra jump.

"Sorry, it sticks sometimes." Vince replied.

Sandra nodded, taking in the untidy mess of videos and books that cluttered the small living area.

"Take a seat if you can find one." Vince said. "Can I get you a cup of tea?"

"That'd be nice." Sandra said, making her way through the piles of books and tapes in order to reach the small sofa. She was surprised how comfortable it was, despite it's age, and wondered if it had seen a lot of action before Stuart. Not that she cared much about this man because, whether he was good for her boss or not, in the short term he was going to be the only solution to Stuart's latest funk.

"Now, I suppose you have some questions for me." Vince said as he brought over two steaming mugs a moment later. "Although if you're looking for Stuart, you're out of luck, I don't know where he is right now." He added, trying to keep his voice upbeat despite his worry for his lover.

"I know where he is." Sandra said, trying to keep her tone light to match Vince's. "What I'm more interested to know is what happened yesterday, or I guess the day before now" she ammended looking at her watch, "that made Stuart call me in the middle of the night and tell me he'd fucked up."

"Is he okay?" Vince asked. "What did he say?"

"Maybe you should let me hear your side of the story."

"Did he tell you what happened?" Vince asked.

"He's barely said anything." Sandra replied truthfully.

Vince sighed, rubbing a hand over his tired face while he thought of what he wanted to say. He paused a moment and then spoke again.

"We had an argument, not even an argument really, more of a disagreement." Vince said. "I went out with some friends and he didn't want me to go. He followed me to the club and then accused me of cheating on him."

"And were you?" Sandra asked. Her tone was light, teasing almost but Vince could sense an edge to her words. He had to remind himself that she was Stuart's friend and that she wanted the best for Stuart, she was also the only way that he would find out where Stuart was and so he had to keep her on side.

"No." Vince replied. "Why would I do that?"

"You wouldn't be the first." Sandra replied darkly.

"Just because other people have cheated on him, it doesn't mean that I would." Vince replied. "Anyway, we had an argument and he misunderstood something I said."

"What did you say?" Sandra asked.

"I said he was high maintenance, but I didn't mean..." Vince trailed off when he saw the look on Sandra's face. There was obviously more to Stuart's reaction than he realised. "What is it?" Vince asked.

"Has Stuart told you anything about his life in New York?" Sandra asked.

"I know who he is." Vince replied.

"I don't mean that." Sandra replied. "I mean his life before he became Stuart Hardwick?"

"I know he was at college with Mark." Vince replied. "I know about Harry."

"There was a time between college and him taking over at Hardwick." Sandra said. "I'm not surprised he didn't tell you. It's not something that he likes to talk about."

"Should you be telling me now?" Vince asked, not wanting her to share something that Stuart wouldn't be comfortable with him knowing for fear that it would further sour his relationship with Stuart, that was if there was any relationship left with Stuart.

"Probably not, but I think you need to know so that I can explain why he reacted the way he did." Sandra said. "Have you heard of Tad Thacker?"

"Of course I have." Vince replied, who hadn't heard of Tad Thacker, he was one of Hollywood's rising stars and had thirteen hit films under his belt already and had just directed his first motion picture.

"Tad and Stuart had a relationship, well as much as anyone in the industry closet can have a relationship."

"Really?" Vince asked, he hadn't even realised that Tad Thacker was gay. Of course there were rumours, there were always rumours about hot young hollywood, but Vince gave them about as much credence as the ones about Justin Timberlake.

"Tad thought that Stuart would be his opportunity to get an audience with Adam Hardwick. Stuart was working on his first show and although no one knew who he was really they all knew that Adam was funding his show. Tad, still working on ads and indie films, had decided that Adam was Stuart's benefactor and that bedding Stuart was a way to the richer man's wallet."

"What happened?" Vince asked, although he could already see what was going to come next.

"Stuart thought Tad was the real thing. He hoped that they would have what Peter and James had and wanted to start thinking about settling down, Stuart was even considering taking a job at Hardwick to be closer to his lover."

"But that wasn't enough for Tad?" Vince asked, remembering his own difficulties with controlling boyfriends.

"Tad expected Stuart to give up everything and to talk Adam into bankrolling his next picture. When Stuart refused to use his relationship with Adam in that way Tad told him that he didn't care for Stuart, that Stuart wanted more than Tad was willing to offer. Tad told Stuart that he was too possessive and that he had been seeing someone else on the side to get away from Stuart's smothering."

"Shit..." Vince said as he realised the words he had spoken had hit a nerve that Vince had not even realised was exposed. No wonder Stuart had reacted the way that he did.

"So you see why he ran out?" Sandra asked.

Vince nodded, already wondering how he could make things up to Stuart.

"I know it seems like he overreacted but I think Stuart really cares for you, and I think you care about him too."

"I love him." Vince said, blushing as he realised that he had said the words aloud.

"Good." Sandra said.

"Can I see him?" Vince asked, knowing that this woman's opinion mattered and that she was the only way that he was going to see Stuart anytime soon. Sandra had said that she knew where Stuart was and Vince hoped that he had showed her enough that she would let him see Stuart.

"I think that would be a good idea." She replied. "Do you know the Russell Inn?"

Vince nodded.

Sandra rooted through her bag and pulled out a key. "He's in room 216." She said.

"Aren't you coming?" Vince asked as he looked from her to the key.

"I think the two of you have a lot of talking to do, and I don't want to be around for the aftermath." She added with a knowing wink.

Vince blushed at the innuendo and then reached for his jacket, it was early and he had been awake for most of the night but he didn't want any more space to gather between he and Stuart before they sorted things out.

"Don't worry about me." Sandra said as Vince paused. "I'll see myself out."

Vince hesitated a moment, wondering about leaving a strange woman alone in his flat, but he didn't want to wait any longer than he had to.

"Make sure you pull the door to on your way out." Vince replied as he headed out and as she watched him retreat Sandra started to look around the room to take the measure of the man that had won her boss' heart.

***

***

*Part 16*

"Fuck off, Sandra." Stuart called as he heard the light tap on the door and then heard the door click behind her. He should have known that she wouldn't leave him alone for too long, always sticking her nose in where it wasn't wanted that one.

"Stuart..." A timid voice asked, Stuart recognised it and spun around to see Vince. A thousand thoughts crossed his mind immediately before he realised that this was where the meddling Sandra had been. He should have known that she wouldn't leave it alone.

"Don't worry, I'm not about to off myself, no matter what she told you." Stuart replied, knowing that Sandra knew too much and that she had probably shared all of his dirty secrets with Vince.

"I'm sorry." Vince said as he stepped closer into the room. "I didn't mean what I said before, if I'd known..."

"She told you then?" Stuart said, although he had already known that Sandra would. "Told you what a sad bastard I really am."

"I think we're a pair of sad bastards." Vince replied with a humourless laugh. "I think we're both as scared as each other about this thing between us."

"I didn't think there was anything between us." Stuart replied darkly. "Not after last night."

"You don't seem like the sort to run at the first sign of trouble." Vince replied.

"I run like the wind." Stuart replied. "No commitments, no entanglements. It's what I always do."

"Not always." Vince answered as he finally moved far enough into the room to take a seat on the edge of the sofa. "You didn't with me."

"And look what a mess I made of that."

"We all fuck up, Stuart." Vince stated. "Remember how much I screwed up when I first found out who you are?"

"Yeah, but that was my fault." Stuart reasoned. "I should have told you up front. I just..."

"We all have secrets, Stuart. And we all lie. Everybody lies."

Stuart remained silent.

"You think that you're the only one with a Tad Thacker in your past?" Vince asked.

Stuart smiled wryly.

"You've slept with Tad Thacker?" Stuart asked.

"Not *the* Tad Thacker, but I have my own useless bastard in my past, his name was Darren Griffiths. He was only my second boyfriend and he didn't even like me. Turns out he was married with two kids."

"So what?"

"We've all been hurt, Stuart, and maybe that's why I pushed you away earlier and why you let me, because we were both afraid of being hurt. But the thing is, if we can't get past this then we'll never get anywhere, we'll never have anyone and we're letting those bastards win."

"You really didn't mean it?" Stuart asked, biting his lip slightly and showing the real insecure Stuart that Vince was just getting to know, the one that he hid under the bravado of confidence and cockiness. "What you said earlier?"

"I didn't know where I stood with you, you never said anything and then suddenly it was like we were married." Vince replied. "I swear, I only went out to spend time with my friends..."

"I know." Stuart replied.

There was a brief moment of silence that Vince used to move closer to Stuart, pulling him to his feet and placing a soft kiss on his mouth.

"So, are we going to give this another go?" Vince asked. "Properly this time?"

"It depends, can you put up with me being high maintenance?" Stuart asked, but there was a smile that belied his words. "We artistic types are known for being temperamental."

"If you can put up with me in my small, sad world."

"I think I could use some normality." Stuart replied.

They sealed it with a kiss, and at least for now the crisis was averted and everything was right with the world again.

***

*Part 17*

Stuart kept the room at the Russell Inn for the next two days, he and Vince didn't leave the room and it was like a honeymoon again but just as with a real honeymoon eventually they had to go back to the real world. Vince had work and Stuart had to get back into his studio if he was going to meet the deadlines that Ana had set for him but the pair of them seemed as if they were back on track and managed to settle into a steady routine.

Sandra, after three days of bugging Stuart to get back to work and a further three visiting her family, returned to the States because she said that the office would fall apart without her and Stuart, although laughing at the time, had agreed.

Deep down Stuart knew that this was when his relationship with Vince would be tested, they had locked themselves away from the world the first time and then as Vince had headed out to the real world they had hit a problem, it was as he headed out to the real world for a second time that Stuart worried the same might happen again.

Stuart had been dodging Ana's calls for long enough, March was rapidly approaching, and he knew that meant he had to be back in New York for his one man show. The issue was that he and Vince had not discussed this, had not discussed the future because neither one wanted to contemplate it. Both knew that Stuart would return to his life at some point and that they would have to deal with the question of their relationship and where they both stood. Stuart knew that he would have to deal with it but he also worried that Vince would not understand who he was when he was Stuart Hardwick, he would be the same person but the way that others treated changed when he was the famous artist and Hardwick heir. He wasn't sure that he was ready for Vince to see that.

Unfortunately for Stuart he did not have the luxury of waiting for the right place and the right time to tell his lover about his one man show as he came back to his studio one afternoon to find Ana sitting on his ratty sofa and Vince making tea.

"Hiya," Vince said as Stuart entered and came towards him, "I didn't realise you would have company today, thought I'd come over and work on that piece I was talking about and..."

Stuart pulled Vince to him, causing the other man to slop tea over the edge of the cup as he roughly kissed him.

"Blimey, I'm stocking up on this aftershave." Vince giggled self-consciously as he looked toward Ana, assuming that Stuart had not realised that she was there.

"You're fantastic all on your own." Stuart replied, placing another peck on Vince's cheek before allowing his lover to hand Ana her tea. Stuart sat down on the sofa and then, surprising them both, pulled Vince down to sit on his lap.

"Stuart..." Ana started, but he held up a hand to quiet her and then leaned over Vince's shoulder to take a sip of his partner's tea.

"You're here to see what work I have ready for the show," Stuart said. "I know that we only have a couple of weeks and I'm not going to skip out on my responsibilities. Well, all of the completed works are through in the other room," Stuart said as he indicated the working area he had adopted as his space. "Anything to the left is Vince's, other than that it's all fair game."

She opened her mouth to speak and then thought better of it, standing and taking her handbag with her (as if she didn't trust Vince to be alone near it), she headed off to where Stuart had indicated. Stuart paused a moment and then allowed Vince to slip onto the sofa next to him.

"Don't start," Stuart said as he turned towards Vince, "I would have told you if I knew she was coming over, I was going to tell you, I just hadn't finalised the details yet."

"When do you leave?" Vince asked.

"The shows start on March 20th." Stuart replied, a date less than three weeks away, and then he let out a sigh.

"I wanted to talk to you about it, let you know what the dates were and give you a chance to come with me but the time never seemed right and I..."

"You want me with you?" Vince asked, his insecurity showing through as he saw for the first time that this trip was not a convenient excuse for Stuart to dump him and that there might be a future.

"Of course," Stuart replied, "but I know that you have work, and your family and..."

"Screw work," Vince replied, "when do we leave?"

Stuart smiled, loving this fearless streak in Vince, and leaned in to kiss him.

"I'll have Sandra book the tickets tomorrow." Stuart said. "If we fly out a few days before, on the 15th, does that give you enough time to get things sorted?"

"That's fine." Vince replied, his mind already planning everything he wanted and needed for the trip of a lifetime. Vince had never been outside Europe, and even then the trips were limited to a few lads weekends and school trips, this would be his chance to see something of the world and he would be doing it in style - he'd probably need new clothes, and a new suit and...

"I'll leave you to think about what you need," Stuart replied with an indulgent smile, "let me sort Ana out and then I'll get rid of her, we can celebrate in style."

And with that he wandered into the workroom to face his agent.

***

***

"Stuart," Ana said, standing aghast when he came towards her, "I don't know what to say..."

"Yes, I have a boyfriend, yes, it's serious, no, he's not just after my money..." Stuart started.

"Oh, no," she said distractedly, "I wasn't talking about that, although I always thought you preferred twinks, I was talking about the work. This is phenomenal. I don't think you've ever done work of this calibre before."

"I thought as my agent you were supposed to think all my work is fabulous."

"I do, but this..." Ana paused, looking for the right words, "before you were another of dozens of fine artists but these put you in a class above that. You've always been good, Stuart, you don't need me to tell you that but these are great works."

"It's Vince's fault." Stuart replied, talking louder so that his lover could hear. "He's my inspiration."

"Well then, shower him in gifts and give him whatever he wants but make sure that you keep ahold of him firmly with both hands because you don't want someone else to steal him away from you."

"Don't worry, Ana," Stuart replied, "I intend to keep him."

She smiled in response.

"Now, get out of here so that I can start to give him what he wants." Stuart replied, waggling his eyebrows to ensure she knew what he intended.

Ana shook her head and laughed but took her bag and left, leaving Vince and Stuart alone so that Vince could inspire another great masterpiece.

***

tbc


End file.
